Just days after Christian conservative advocate Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the United States for proclaiming biblical truths that some found objectionable, Ashur Sarnaya, a 45-year-old Chaldean Catholic from Iraq, was murdered in Lyon, France. Disabled and confined to a wheelchair, Sarnaya was stabbed in the throat outside his apartment on September 10, 2025, while livestreaming on TikTok about his faith.
Originally from Ankawa in Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the largest Christian towns in the Middle East, Sarnaya fled persecution by the Islamic State and resettled in Lyon about a decade ago. He had legal status in France and was well known for his deep devotion to his Catholic faith. Using the TikTok account “Ashur Love,” he regularly posted prayers, hymns, and reflections in Arabic. His final livestream turned into a harrowing recording of his death.
Commentators and fellow believers described him as a martyr. St. Ephrem’s Chaldean Catholic parish in Lyon, where he was an active member, joined in mourning, as did the wider Assyrian-Chaldean community in France. Roughly 30,000 Assyrian-Chaldeans live in the country today, many of whom arrived after ISIS swept across Iraq and Syria in 2014, displacing more than 120,000 Christians from their homes in the Nineveh Plains.
Sarnaya’s murder has also fueled political debate and broader fears about anti-Christian violence in France. The Center Reflection Sur La Security Interior (CRSI) reported that the first half of 2025 saw a 13 percent rise in anti-Christian incidents compared to the same period in 2024. Evangelical groups and Christian leaders pointed out that Sarnaya often faced hateful comments online and had even been physically attacked earlier this year for openly displaying his faith. Many argue that his public witness as a Christian directly led to his killing.
Right-wing politician Marine Le Pen blamed Islamist extremism and France’s “unlimited and uncontrolled immigration policy,” warning that the country was now welcoming both persecuted Christians and their potential executioners.
Meanwhile, social media campaigns have called for a national demonstration against “Christianophobia” in Paris later this month. For many French Christians, the murder of Ashur Sarnaya is a symbol of a broader reality: believers remain vulnerable to violence, whether in the war zones of the Middle East or in the supposed safety of Europe.
Just days earlier, Christians were massacred in Africa. On September 8, at least 70 Christians were slaughtered during a funeral in the village of Ntoyo in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to Open Doors, the attackers were fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), also known as Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP).
Armed with guns and machetes, they stormed the mourning ceremony and killed indiscriminately. ISCAP later claimed responsibility, boasting that nearly 100 Christians had been killed. Survivors recalled horrific scenes of people gunned down or hacked to death as they tried to escape.
The attack was part of a broader campaign of Islamist violence targeting Christians in the region. Despite the DRC being a majority-Christian nation, groups like Open Doors warn that believers there are “increasingly vulnerable to persecution,” particularly in North Kivu province. The ADF, once a Ugandan rebel movement and now recognized as an affiliate of the Islamic State, has repeatedly attacked Christian communities, abducting and killing civilians, burning churches, and displacing thousands. In this most recent massacre, at least 100 people were kidnapped and dozens of homes were destroyed, adding to the terror and instability already gripping the region.
Church leaders described the carnage in stark terms. Parish priest Abbé Paluku Nzalamingi spoke of women and children lying dead inside homes, on roads, and near the mourning site. Local administrator Macaire Sivikunula said mourners were “caught off guard” when militants attacked around 9 p.m. Even though Congolese soldiers eventually arrived, the damage had been done. Authorities also reported 18 more deaths in a separate suspected ADF attack in another village.
According to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List, more than 380 million Christians, about 1 in 7 worldwide, face high levels of persecution and discrimination, including 310 million in the top 50 countries alone. In the past year, 4,476 Christians were murdered for their faith, with Nigeria accounting for roughly 3,100 deaths (a decline from the prior year), and Burkina Faso recording 201 killings—over five times the 2023 total.
Attacks on churches and Christian properties reached 7,679, including more than a hundred churches destroyed in Sudan. At least 209,771 believers were driven from their homes into hiding or exile (nearly half from Nigeria), 4,744 were imprisoned, and 54,780 suffered physical or mental abuse, including about 10,000 cases in Pakistan.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the deadliest region, with eight of the top ten killing zones for Christians and an estimated 16.2 million of the region’s 34.5 million displaced people being Christian. The ten most dangerous countries in 2025 are North Korea (for the 23rd straight year), Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. In many places, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, China, Gaza, and the West Bank, Christians are forced underground. In Algeria, all Protestant churches have been shut or barred from regular worship.
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