Weekly Bulletin on the Persecution
of Christians Worldwid

19 May 2026

The Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem continues her mission to expose and condemn the ongoing persecution of Christians, documenting recent reports of violence against them across Africa and Asia.

India

On 13 May, three Christian pastors were killed and four others were wounded in an armed ambush in the Kangpokpi district of Manipur State. The convoy of God’s ministers was returning from an ecclesial gathering held in Churachandpur.

China

In Kaili, Guizhou Province, the authorities arrested six members of a local house church on charges of “fraud” and an unprecedented indictment: “organising minors in activities detrimental to public order”. The alleged offence? Running Sunday school classes for children. This is the first time in China that religious education for young children has been legally equated with subversive activities, marking a dramatic escalation in the targeting of the right of Christian families to pass on their faith to future generations.

On 18 May, in Guangzhou, three Christians — Zheng Zhoulin, Xiong Zhuo and Li Yuesui — were formally indicted by the authorities for “illegal business operations” due to their involvement in a project to publish and distribute Christian apologetic books and biblical literature. In a letter to his children from prison, Zheng Zhoulin wrote: “From the moment I believed in the Lord, I have already died with Him and no longer belong to this world”.

Congo

Northeastern Congo witnessed yet another week of bloodshed, with over eighty Christians being massacred by terrorists from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamic State affiliate. On 7 May, in broad daylight, terrorists raided the village of Biakato in Mambasa territory, Ituri Province, posing as national army soldiers to surround the residents; twenty-six people were killed and many abducted. On 10 May, militants struck Makumo village, hacking at least nine civilians to death with machetes and torching numerous homes. A subsequent incursion in Biakato on 13 May claimed another twenty-one lives. Survivors recounted how the attackers bound individuals before leaves-assacring them with blades while the victims invoked the name of Jesus Christ.

Nigeria

On the night of 14 May, Boko Haram terrorists launched simultaneous attacks on three Christian communities – Bambatsu, Sangula, and Ngadarma – near the town of Chibok in Borno State, killing eight Christians, among them a one-day-old newborn, and wounding twenty-three others. The following morning, on 15 May, armed terrorists stormed the primary and secondary school in Mussa, a predominantly Christian community in Askira-Uba district, abducting forty children, some under the age of five.

On the Feast of Christianity that Heals, the Church lifts her prayers to the Heart of Christ, the source of eternal Life, for all the persecuted Christians across every continent, the new Christianity destined to heal the nations may arise from the wounds inflicted upon His Mystical Body. The tears of the wounded, the blood of the martyrs, the anguish of the abducted, the imprisonment of the pastors, and every wound suffered for the love of Christ are the seeds of Resurrection, of new Skies and a new Earth.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
He will be ‘God-with-them’.
He will wipe away all tears from their eyes;
there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness,
for the world of the past has gone”
(Rev 21:1.4)