Source: www.worthynews.com
Date: September 26, 2024
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Islamic insurgent terrorists in central Mali have given the region’s Christian community the options of converting to Islam and helping their insurgency or leaving their homes and communities, the Open Doors international Christian advocacy organization reports.
Pastors in the town of Mopti in Mali’s Inner Niger Delta region were recently summoned by Islamic extremists, who told the Christians they should leave their communities unless they were willing to join the ongoing insurgency, Open Doors UK reported on August 30.
“The implication was clearly a threat of violence if they did not – and violence from Islamic militants is the major cause of persecution against Christians in Mali,” Open Doors UK said in its report.
The militants in question are believed to belong to the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) Islamic terror group.
“Christians are very worried about this new development and are taking the threat seriously,” Mopti Pastor Charles Yabaga Diarra told Open Doors UK. “Nothing has happened on this scale before. Because the jihadists conquered the land, they feel it belongs to them, so they are telling the Christians to pay them a Zakat tax which is an Islamic tithe. Muslims and animists are already paying it.”
Open Doors UK noted: “There is a real sense of fear for Christians living in the Mopti and Segu regions which have been taken over by Islamic extremists. They face an impossible choice either serving the wishes of extremist Islamic fighters or being driven out of their homes. Thousands of displaced Christians who are now living in Bamako might feel safer but they have lost everything – their livelihood and homelands.”
Plagued by an Islamic terrorist insurgency since 2012, Mali ranks 14 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.