U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt ‘Appalled’ By Global Persecution of Christians
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged support from his country for war-torn Nigeria on Wednesday, where the Boko Haram arm of the Islamic State has massacred countless scores of Christians.
During a stop in Maiduguri, Borno State, Northeast Nigeria, where the terrorist organization killed 25 people returning from a wedding this week, Mr Hunt said the U.K. “will continue to support Nigeria in the fight to give people secure, prosperous and happy lives,” adding that the possibility of the U.K. lending military support to the Nigerian government was not off the table.
Hunt, who is a Christian himself, was at the helm of an effort in December to analyze the U.K.’s policy toward persecuted Christians worldwide, a project that is being supervised by the Bishop of Truro, Philip Mountstephen, and due to be completed this Summer.
“Of all the people who suffer persecution for their faith, it may surprise some to know that the greatest number are Christian,” Hunt said of the impetus for the project while commenting on the Easter carnage in Sri Lanka a few weeks ago.
In an additional gesture of support, at the end of Lent this year the Foreign Secretary sent 40 letters of solidarity to global Christian leaders, foremost among them Brother Andrew (Andrew van der Bijl), the Dutchman who smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and later founded persecution advocacy group Open Doors.
“I want you to know that the UK stands in solidarity with persecuted Christians around the world,” Hunt wrote to the famous missionary, who received the first of the Foreign Secretary’s epistles.
Nigeria is perhaps the most lethal place to be a Christian in the entire world. In July of 2018, the Nigerian House of Representatives acknowledged killings of Christians that had occurred in Plateau state as “genocide.” That spate of violence against believers by Muslim Fulani Herdsmen accounted for more than a quarter of the Christians killed worldwide in 2018, while the total death toll of Christians in Nigeria last year made up some 86% of global martyrdoms, according to Open Doors U.S.A.’s 2019 World Watch List.