Last year was the “worst year in modern history for Christian persecution”, according to a group that monitors violence against the faithful. The 2016 World Watch List, drawn up by the charity Open Doors, found that North Korea was the most dangerous place to be a Christian for the second year running. Of the 50 worst countries to be a Christian, 35 have a problem with Islamic extremism, which has “risen to a level akin to ethnic cleansing”, the report said. Iraq, part of which is in the hands of the Islamic extremist group ISIS, is number two on the list. The other eight countries in the top 10 are all Islamic, with Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, all of whom are struggling with ISIS insurgents, at numbers four, five and 10 respectively. Pakistan, where Christian farmworker Asia Bibi is still in jail five years after being accused of blasphemy, is also in the top 10. Among the worst atrocities last year was the murder by ISIS-linked militants of 21 mostly Egyptian Christians in Libya in September. The report said that, in terms of the number of Christians killed, the persecution in sub-Saharan Africa “dwarfs what is happening in the Middle East”. In Nigeria, it said, both the Islamist group Boko Haram and a separate group, the Hausa-Fulani tribesmen, were “aiming to eradicate Christianity”. In Eritrea, meanwhile, “the North Korea of Africa”, a totalitarian regime means that Christians are “desperate to escape”, even to the extent of risking their lives with traffickers.