HOAX – 22 Christian missionary families to be executed in Afghanistan? – Fact Check

A message is being passed through social media that implores readers to pray for 22 Christian missionary families that are about to be executed in Afghanistan by the “Islamic”.

An example of the warning as it appeared on Facebook can be seen below –

Please pray 4 22 Christian Missionary families to be executed by Islamic in Afghanistan. Can you please pass this news quickly so a lot of people can pray for them.

Perhaps the most notable point to make when reviewing the accuracy of the above prayer request is that it has been spreading online since the start of 2009, and even back then it was not clear what incident the message was referring to.

While missionary works in areas such as Afghanistan is certainly not particularly safe and has resulted in kidnappings and even executions in the past, we – and others – could not find any incident where 22 missionaries (or families of missionaries) were captured in Afghanistan, nor any case where they may have been executed (or planned to have been executed.)

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Any Internet search for this case simply reveals results pertaining to the above chain message that has been spreading online since 2009, disappearing and then inevitably reappearing, despite being hopelessly out-of-date even if it did refer to a real event, which is does not.

Some versions of the warning claim the message was penned by a man named Godwin Bernhardt. We are unable to locate anyone with that name.

As such, we don’t recommend spreading the message online. This type of misinformation detracts from very serious missionary work in war torn regions across the world and will only serve as a source of confusion.