About 350,000 Syrian Christians have been forced to flee their homes. Many have been killed, sold into sex slavery, or forced into hiding. They are not going to U.N. refugee camps, where they often face further persecution, sources tell WND.

As U.S. and European leaders reach out with open arms to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees flooding into Europe, the groans of persecuted Christians in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan are increasingly drowned out.

President Obama announced Thursday that the U.S. will accept an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, on top of the 1,600 that have already arrived. The Syrian arrivals coming from United Nations refugee camps to date have been 95 percent Muslim.

When it comes to the plight of Christians, most of the voices of concern for "refugees" – whether they come from the EU, the White House, the Congress or in the media – fall silent, says a spokesman for the International Christian Concern.

The ICC posted an alert on its website Thursday that an estimated 30,000 Pakistani Christians have been forced to flee their homeland due to persecution from the Muslim majority in Pakistan. They are living in crude conditions in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia with little help from the United Nations or various international aid agencies. Christians in Pakistan are often jailed for their beliefs, their churches are bombed and their pastors killed. The president of Pakistan Christian Congress has urged the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries to open doors to the persecuted Pakistani Christians. Nazir Bhatti, who launched the Pakistan Christian Congress in 1985 and was forced to flee Pakistan in 1998 after he challenged the nation's Islamic blasphemy laws, has written leaders of the E.U., U.K., U.S. and other European countries asking that they receive Pakistani Christian asylum seekers, reported the website Christians in Pakistan.

Bhatti's plea comes after the announcement from Prime Minister David Cameron that the U.K. will accept 20,000 Syrian refugees, while Germany is welcoming 800,000, Spain is taking 20,000 and France 24,000. President Obama has previously committed to taking 5,000 to 8,000 Syrians over the next year, but his administration announced today it is considering increasing that number by 10,000.

Refugees or migrants? Despite all of the attention being given to Syrians as "war refugees," data from the United Nations refugee agency indicates that the majority may actually be economic migrants rather than true war refugees. The UNCHR data shows, for instance, that 75 percent of the so-called refugees flooding into Europe this year are men, and that only 51 percent are Syrian.

Bhatti has petitioned the leaders of U.K., Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Hungry, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other E.U. member states to give refuge to Pakistani Christian asylum seekers by allowing them easy entry into their countries.

Lord George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent op-ed in the Telegraph, urged Britain to focus on taking Syrian Christians, saying they are the most vulnerable and repeatedly targeted victims of the Syrian civil war. While Carey said he welcomes Cameron's announcement to take in more Syrian refugees, the most targeted refugees are being left behind to face their Islamic killers. "But the frustration for those of us who have been calling for compassion for Syrian victims for many months is that the Christian community is yet again left at the bottom of the heap," Carey wrote.

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Source:  International Prayer Connect

The role of watchmen in the Old Testament was well understood. They had to stand guard twenty-fours a day for a city. Cities are mentioned over 800 times in the Bible. Unlike today, when we have mega-cities across the world, in Old Testament times cities were sometimes quite small. What distinguished them from villages was the wall of protection built around them. Each city wall had watch-towers constructed as part of the wall. One sees this replicated today in some historic castles scattered across theBritish Isles.

Watchmen had to stand guard in shifts around the clock, watching for signs of danger.They would then inform the city elders, who would decide what action was appropriate. Isaiah 62.6, Jeremiah 6.17 and Ezekiel 3.17 (among others) speaks of the role of spiritual watchmen.

In many nations today, the church has taken this very seriously. Multiple "watches" in prayer centres and towers, churches, ministry centres - even prisons - have been established, involving many thousands of Christians in prayer on a regular basis. I believe God is calling again for such watches to be established. These are prayer watches, involving all ages. Some already are deliberately and regularly taking the night watches. African believers know that the hours of darkness are when most of the evil in the world takes place. "Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil".

Certainly the urgency of the hour, the spread of wars, the economic uncertainty, the widening gap between rich and poor, the increasing intensity of enemy aggression against followers of Christ, the huge migrant crisis gripping Europe, creating population shifts, the terrorist threats posed by Islamist groups in many parts of the world - all this and more means that we as Christians need to be "watching and praying". Nothing is certain - everything is shifting.

How do we watch? Certainly in prayer for extended times. By keeping our eyes open to what the evil one is doing as well as to what God is doing, we will have fuel for prayer. By watching the news (but not getting fearful because of the news) can be a help, so long as we recognise that the news media can only present a perspective - not the whole truth. But we also need to see things from God's perspective as we pray. He knows everything we need to know for effective prayer. By being seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2.10), we can know that too.

We also need to watch and pray in unity. Watchmen on the walls were in touch with each other. We need to check what we are discerning with others, and then decide what to do next - in unity with both watchmen and the elders of the city. When I meet with prayer leaders in the South East region of the UK this is something we do. Where do we watch? We need to ask God what is the assignment he individually wishes us to take on. For some it will be their street, for others their village, town or city. Others know they are called to be watchmen for their nation. And some know that God has appointed them to be global watchmen. I was at a gathering of intercessory leaders in mid August, and around half of them knew they had been called to be global watchmen. I know God has called me to be one of these too.

The times we are in are serious. Satan knows that his time is short. So he is active on multiple fronts simultaneously. He works through a network of principalities and powers, and demonic systems of control. Most Christians in the West are not alert to these things (unlike our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia, who are well aware of Satan's devices). But we need to be on our guard and alert!

Where are the watchmen? "Watch and pray", said Jesus lest you fall into diverse temptations.

Source:  Brian Mills, IPC Senior Advisor