While the gaze of the world is focused on Ukraine and Russia, in Afghanistan the Taliban is now going ‘door-to-door’ searching for Christians, who are then murdered for their faith.
Christian barrister Paul Diamond, who has been in constant contact with Afghan Christians since the West pulled out last summer, said they are now in hiding for their lives. He is seeking an urgent meeting with the government minister responsible for the resettlement of Afghan citizens in the UK.
Mr Diamond says that, despite the fact that Open Doors now regards Afghanistan as the ‘most dangerous country in the world for Christians to practice their religion’, the UK Government insists Christians wait until 2023 before they may even start to apply to come to the UK. He has therefore written to Victoria Atkins MP, the minister overseeing the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, because he says Christians cannot wait another year – they will be dead by then.
He added the security threat from the Taliban is extremely high. No one is willing to be interviewed by foreign media to share the plight of Christians because, if they do, they and their entire family will be hunted down, threatened, persecuted or killed. Christian believers have even been discovered because extended family members have reported them to the Taliban, expecting they would be protected by them and given food and help.
Recently a group of seven Christians were captured. Three were released from prison by a bribe (one of them for 100,000 US dollars, the second one for 30,000 US dollars and the third one for 40,000 US dollars). The bodies of the other four Christians have been found in a hospital. The Taliban later announced to the media that they were killed due to ‘personal animosities’. When confronted by the murdered Christians’ families, the Taliban denied murdering them, saying that they had been killed by their ‘personal enemies’. They then threatened the families: ‘If you spread the word, you will be killed.’
