Sign in Subscribe

The Watchman

The persecuted global church. Verified reporting on believers under fire, with names, dates, and sources.

Two of the Three Came Home. It Took Thirteen Days for Anyone to Find Out.

Two of the Three Came Home. It Took Thirteen Days for Anyone to Find Out.

Two of the three church leaders taken from Heiban were released on July 28 and August 1. The news took thirteen days to leave the Nuba Mountains, and it reached us after we published.

He Said Mass That Morning Standing In for Someone Else. He Was Found on Church Road.

He Said Mass That Morning Standing In for Someone Else. He Was Found on Church Road.

Father Samuel Oyetoro filled in for a colleague on leave, said Mass, and was found on Church Road with machete wounds. Four days later gunmen took three people from a Sunday Mass in another state.

Engraving of a small hillside church in the Nuba Mountains, its door standing open, empty stools outside, smoke on the far ridge.

Three Church Leaders Are Gone From One Town in Sudan. Nobody Has Asked for Money.

Heiban lost three church leaders in nine days. In three months of abductions, no one has demanded a ransom for any of them. That absence is the story.

He Went Back to Look at His Family's Land. Fifteen Days Later They Let Him Out.

He Went Back to Look at His Family's Land. Fifteen Days Later They Let Him Out.

Nihad Hassan pastors a Kurdish congregation in Beirut. He went home to see what was left of his family's property. Police held him fifteen days and never filed a charge.

Seven Men Went to a Child's Birthday Party. Six Villages Lost Their Churches.

Seven Men Went to a Child's Birthday Party. Six Villages Lost Their Churches.

A birthday party for a five year old in Dindori ended with seven men serving five years and six village congregations shut.

Engraved scene, house Watchman art

The Prison Has a Priest. The 106 Christians Inside Have Not Had a Mass in Months.

The document is polite. That is the first thing to understand about it. A Cairo lawyer named Said Fayez addressed a public appeal to officials of Egypt’s National Security Agency. It does not protest anyone’s innocence. It does not denounce the state. It asks for one thing, a

Engraved village road at dusk, house Watchman art

He Won the Debate. The Road Home Was Nine Miles Long.

Bernard Mulongo was 25. He pastored the New Restoration Church of Christ in Butebo District, in eastern Uganda. He had a wife and two children, ages 4 and 7. On Saturday, July 18, he traveled to Mbale for an open air debate between Christians and Muslims. He spoke well. Pastors