The Voice of the suffering and persecuted​

PITER ESSA, 17, just graduated from High School in Aleppo, Syria. Piter, who is Syriac-Orthodox, tells Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) about some of his painful experiences during his country’s civil war: “I’ve survived this awful war, and I live my life like I used to. My school ...

niON THE FEAST of the Assumption, August 15, Pope Francis, during the Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square, blessed 6,000 rosaries destined for Syria. They will be given to Christians in Syria who have had relatives or family members abducted or murdered during the civil war. This is part of ...

“On June 8, 2019, he went to work but did not come home. I was very worried, as he was never late. His brother helped me look for him. We went street by street but could not find him. The next morning, someone told us that he’d seen the body ...

"We Christians are a people of hope. But facing the end also brings us clarity, and with it the courage to finally speak the truth. Our hope to remain in our ancient homeland now rests on our own ability, and the ability of our oppressors and of the world at ...

FATHER DURAID Barber is a priest of the Syriac-Catholic Archdiocese of Mosul, Kirkuk and Kurdistan. Born and raised in Qaraqosh, a Christian town on the Nineveh Plains, he spent three years in exile in Kurdistan after ISIS swept through the region. He returned to Qaraqosh in June 2017, the first ...

Summer camps in Syria—‘She felt her heart had begun to beat again’ THIS YEAR, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been supporting more than 40 different summer programs for the benefit of Christian communities in countries where they are a minority, experience discrimination or where they are suffering ...

“THE PURPOSE of the brutal actions of the Eritrean government was to divest the Church of all services in the areas of education and health. Our work is to be restricted only to our places of worship,” an Eritrean priest told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Father Mussie ...

THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY has passed a resolution establishing August 22 as the “International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief.” Poland was the main sponsor of the resolution, which gained the support of 88 nations, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, ...

" ... Militants clad in khaki stopped the vehicle. When they discovered that Uncle Adeeb was a Christian, they asked him to get out. Our biggest fear is that they may abuse, torture, and kill him, just as savagely as they have other Copts.”

Many Christians are severely traumatized and reluctant to go inside a church: “Many told me that they are afraid to enter a church at the moment or feel fear when they hear the bells ring.”