'Dramatic increase in Jihadist groups,' in Africa, According to Global Religious Freedom Report

A religious freedom report published by Aid to the Church in Need documents an increased presence of jihadist groups in Sub-Saharan and Eastern Africa. The report says some of these groups are affiliates of the Islamic State.

“Over the last two years, jihadist groups have consolidated their presence in Sub-Saharan Africa and the region has become a haven for over two dozen actively operating -- and increasingly cooperating -- groups in 14 countries, including affiliates of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda,” Marcela Szymanski wrote in the report published April 20.

“The development of these affiliates has occurred within an alarmingly short timeframe, and the pattern is familiar. Attacks by local criminal gangs, spurred on by Salafi jihadist preachers, progress from the sporadic and arbitrary to the ideological and targeted.”

The 2021 “Report on Religious Freedom in the World” revealed that between 2018 and 2020 “grave violations of religious freedom” occurred in three out of the world’s 196 countries.

Many people were persecuted for their faith in Nigeria, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African countries.

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) found reports of persecution and hate crimes were more common in India, Myanmar, Iran, Malaysia, and North Korea.

 Thomas Heine-Geldern, president of ACN International said the international community was not doing enough to stop religious violence.

“Today discrimination and persecution on the grounds of religious belief is a growing global phenomenon,” he said.

“Behind the violent conflicts, whether in Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, the Central African Republic or Mozambique -- to mention only a few countries -- are those in the shadows who, manipulating the deepest convictions of humanity, have instrumentalized religion in the search for power.”

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