Filipino Catholic devotees light candles and offer prayers after attending a mass at a National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran, Paranaque city, metro Manila, Philippines on September 18, 2016. | Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
A Muslim extremist group, primarily made up of teenagers, attacked a church in the Philippines, peppering the building and a statue of the patron saint with bullets.
Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reports that in December, the Islamic State-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, a terrorist group based in the southern Philippines, attacked a parish church after conducting a raid on the town’s military and police outposts.