In parts of rural Oaxaca State and other regions of southern Mexico, the dominant religion is a syncretism of Roman Catholicism and traditional indigenous beliefs. The resulting ritual-based belief system is a significant part of community life in many villages.
In recent months, Nicaragua's dictatorial government led by President Daniel Ortega has arbitrarily detained or deported Christians and shut down numerous non-profit organizations. (Read about some of the recent challenges.) On July 17th, 2025, Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas was among a group of Christians detained by police. No arrest warrants or charges were issued, and family members had not received any information on the believers' whereabouts for six months. Tragically, one of Pastor Rudy's detained companions, Mauricio Alonso Petri, died while in custody.
On the morning of January 18th, Christians were gathered for worship in the village of Kurmin Wali, Kaduna State, when armed assailants stormed the community. The attackers raided three church buildings in the village: two congregations of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church, as well as a fellowship belonging to the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA). While over 170 people were taken hostage, some of them later escaped. At the time of publishing this report, at least 163 of the kidnapped victims remain missing – all of whom are being held by their abductors presumably in an unknown location.
The Chinese government's ongoing campaign against unregistered church networks has resulted in the recent arrests of seven additional members of the Early Rain Covenant Church on January 6th. Those detained include Pastor Dai Zhichao, Elder Li Yingqiang and his wife Zhang Xinyue, Deacon Jia Xuewei, along with three other church members: Ye Fenghua, Liang Zhongyuan and Brother Lin (whose full name is being withheld for security reasons).
More than a hundred Christians were among groups of prisoners released from Eritrean detention centres during the months of November and December in 2025. Despite many of them having spent years in captivity under harsh and arbitrary conditions, none of the recently freed individuals had ever been formally charged with a crime.
A Christian evangelistic team was brutally attacked in early January near the village of Korrakudu in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Not only were several believers injured during the ambush, the minibus they had been travelling in was also destroyed.
