How TWR Reaches the Country Where Persecution Is Most Extreme

For the third straight year, North Korea tops Open Doors' World Watch List of the countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian. 

In North Korea, owning a Bible violates “anti-reactionary thought laws” and is a serious crime, reports Open Doors, an agency that has been helping persecuted Christians for 70 years. Those found guilty of being Christians could be executed on the spot or punished with years of hard labor.

Little wonder that, for the third straight year, Open Doors placed North Korea at the top of a sad annual list: the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.

Yet even in North Korea the gospel is being heard. TWR, also known as Trans World Radio, broadcasts the good news of Jesus via shortwave radio from towers on the island of Guam to North Korea, where it’s heard on smuggled and carefully hidden radios.

“North Korean people aren’t allowed access to the Bible, and anyone suspected of being a Christian faces extreme levels of persecution,” said Boaz Seong, TWR international director for Northeast Asia. "In such an environment, how will they know of God’s love for them? What TWR can do is to use media to share God’s Word with them. So we broadcast biblical content daily to share the gospel message with the people of North Korea. We are extending a vital lifeline of spiritual nourishment to the underground church.”

North Korea is featured this month in TWR’s ongoing Reach the Last series highlighting how God is using us to bring the hope of Jesus to the world’s least-reached people groups. We’re broadcasting 16 programs a week in the Korean language via shortwave, offering evangelistic programs, Bible studies and even an entire weekly church service to the estimated 400,000 underground believers in North Korea.

Although North Koreans place themselves at risk when they haul their radios out of hiding and listen, shortwave offers the most secure way available to bring them biblical teaching. The signal is not easily blocked and cannot be traced. It leaves no digital footprint and cannot be censored.

In addition, TWR partners with nongovernmental organizations to provide remote follow-up ministry to help refugees who have escaped from North Korea.

Meanwhile, a separate report released this week called attention to the ongoing violence against Christians in the West African nation of Nigeria. The 2025 Global Christian Relief Red List, in its inaugural report, placed Nigeria at the top of two of its five lists: killings; and abductions and assaults.

According to the report’s data, 9,814 Nigerians were killed for their faith between November 2022 and November 2024. During that same period, 9,311 believers were abducted in Nigeria in an effort to “forcibly funnel money and women to terror groups.” That number is 9,000 more than the next-closest country.

Nigeria was ranked seventh overall by Open Doors, which confirmed that more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country.

But in Nigeria, also, TWR proclaims the gospel by media. A major source is the 150,000-watt transmitter elsewhere in West Africa and known as Oasis that went on the air in 2020 specifically to reach Nigerians.

Joshua Irondi, director of TWR Nigeria, noted that just on Sunday, terrorist attacked a community, burned down two houses, razed a church auditorium. Two brothers were killed in the assault, and a woman was shot and wounded.

“However, in the midst of [this], we keep having testimonies coming from northern Nigeria as evidence that God is changing lives through TWR programs,” Irondi said.

TWR’s Reach the Last series featured the Hausa people of Nigeria in May 2024. TWR broadcasts more than 12 hours of programming weekly in their language. It’s getting results. The article cited Hausa listeners with such comments by phone or text as: “If I want to become a Christian, what can I do?” and, “I am a Muslim, and I want to know more about Jesus.”

Images: (top, banner) A traffic warden marshals the Pyongyang Marathon in North Korea, (bottom, left) Three Nigerian girls huddle around a cell phone.