The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is holding its annual international Red Week campaign to draw attention to religious freedom and persecuted Christians across the world.
Although the events are spread throughout the month, many of the prayer nights and testimonies around the world will be held on 23 November, #RedWednesday.
The annual campaign was launched on November 16 with the official release in London of the ”Persecuted and Forgotten?” Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith in 2020–22. The study supplements the annual Religious Freedom Report of the international charity and is prepared by ACN national office in the UK.One of its key findings shows that, in 75 percent of the 24 countries surveyed the  persecution of Christians has further increased in the past two years.
Of particular concern is the plight of Christians in the Middle East where, in several countries, once flourishing communities risk disappearing as a result of mass migration due to various reasons, ranging from Islamic fundamentalism to discrimination, wars and economic woes.According to the report, since the foundation of the State of Israel, in 1948, the number of Christians in the Palestinian territories has plummeted from 18 per cent to under 1 per cent of the population, due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian tens-ions and economic difficulties. In the past two years over 5,000 Christians have left the territories, including Jerusalem, adding to the tens of thousands who have al-ready left, mostly for Europe, the United States, and Canada.
The Christian exodus from Syria and Iraq has been even more dramatic, especially during the Islamic State’s (Daesh) insurgency in 2014-2017.
Similarly in Syria, the ongoing civil war between Bashar al-Assa-d’s regime and  insurgents and the threat of a full-scale resurgence of Daes, as well as a dramatic economic crisis are still forcing Christians to leave the country and are discouraging many of them from returning to their homes.
As the crippling economic crisis grinds on in Lebanon, amid political and institutional instability, many Christians continue to leave this country too. Over the past 30 months, the Canadian embassy in Beirut received over 10,000 immigration applications from young people and families.
Regarding countries in other parts of the world, the study further calls attention to the sharp rise in terrorist violence from non-state militants, and in particular in Nigeria where the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram continues to sow terror and more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians were reportedly murdered bet-ween January 2021 and June 2022.