World Tour: A year of global trials

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 31st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour. Here’s our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: The past year is characterized by ongoing conflicts and persecution.

In Sudan, fighting between two warring generals has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 14 million people.

The conflict has drawn allegations of genocide and fueled famine in some cities. This month, the United States sanctioned four people and four companies, all linked to Colombia, for recruiting people to join the war.

I spoke with Joseph Siegle, a senior research associate at the University of Maryland.

JOSEPH SIEGLE: This is not a civil war in the classic sense of different ethnic groups, communities, regions of a country fighting one another. This is about a political conflict between these two military leaders who want to control the state, and it’s spiraled further out of control.

Over in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Rwanda-backed rebel group seized major cities in the country this year.

Another rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces, also continued its attacks. The group beheaded 70 Christians in an abandoned church in February.

And in Syria, sectarian clashes flared this year after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad last December.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, led the largest rebel group to overthrow the Assad regime. He previously fought alongside Al Qaeda and was designated a terrorist by the United States. Since he assumed power, his forces have targeted minority groups.

Morhaf Ibrahim belongs to the Alawite sect.

MORHAF IBRAHIM: I think he's very good at nice words and nice gestures, but actions on the ground actually giving everybody different impression about what's going on.

Finally, in Israel, bittersweet celebrations after the return of all the 20 remaining living hostages. WORLD’s Travis Kircher spoke with people at Hostages Square, including Israeli Ori Nachmani.

ORI NACHMANI: I really hope that we’re not only going to get the hostage back. I really hope the end is really over and the suffering from our side and the other side can stop and we will—we can rehabilitate.

Of the 251 hostages that Hamas took during its 2023 attack, 168 eventually returned home.

Meanwhile, insurgency in Nigeria received renewed global attention this year.

Violent attacks hit several communities, including the town of Yelwata in northcentral Benue state,where more than 200 people were killed in June. Other attacks included school abductions and church attacks.

The violence prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to declare Nigeria a country of particular concern. He threatened possible military intervention and the United States also imposed visa restrictions on perpetrators of the violence.

Alheri Magaji is a Nigerian Christian who welcomed the designation.

 ALHERI MAGAJI: Even if it’s one life gone, like I always say, it means a lot. Not to talk of whole villages being wiped out, people not being able to go back to their villages.

Persecution of Christians continued in China as well. Authorities there cracked down on the prominent Zion Church in a series of coordinated raids in October.

Police detained at least 27 people across multiple locations, including Jin Mingri, the head pastor. They face charges of illegal use of information networks.

Authorities have released several of the detainees, but pastor Jin remains in prison.

I spoke with his daughter, Grace.

GRACE MINGRI: As Christians, when we see that other brothers and sisters in the world are praying for us and are speaking out for us, it really means so much like that we are not forgotten and that we are still all bodies of Christ together.

And finally, some uplifting global stories to remember this year.

In January, Patrick Henry College journalism student Clay Ramirez spoke with members of a South Sudanese Christian military chaplaincy. Wes Bentley is the director of Far Reaching Ministries, the organization that runs the chaplaincy training program.

WES BENTLEY: You know we're not there to be soldiers. I went there to be a pastor, but the rebels started coming down and killing all the women and children. So when that happened, I realized that we needed to train these men to be able to defend those who cannot defend themselves and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

And in Germany, Grace Snell visited a Syriac Orthodox Church community working to safeguard the language of the early church.

Linda Güven is Germany’s first state-approved high school teacher of Syriac Orthodox theology.

LINDA GÜVEN: The most important thing in teaching is to make the students understand why. If they don’t understand the meaning behind the thing or the intention of then it’s always difficult to live it, to feel it.

And finally, we wrap up in the United Kingdom, where the Supreme Court in April ruled that the word “sex” in its Equality Act refers to biological sex.

The Equality Act of 2010 seeks to protect people from discrimination. It outlines rights to separate spaces for women in vulnerable places like changing rooms, prisons, and sports.

From the courtroom:

LORD PATRICK STEWART HODGE: As a matter of ordinary language, the provisions relating to sex discrimination, and especially those relating to pregnancy and maternity and to protection from risks specifically affecting women, can only be interpreted as referring to biological sex.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

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