The Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, and the Serb Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop in Bosnia, Hrizostom, on Sunday held a joint prayer for the unity of Christians and on that occasion recalled that nearly 3,000 Christians had been killed worldwide in 2019 because of their faith.

The joint prayer was held in the Serb Orthodox cathedral in the Bosnian capital city, and the sermon was given by Cardinal Puljic, the local Catholic news agency (KTA) said.

Puljic pointed to the worrying statistics about the persecution of Christians and criticised the general public for becoming indifferent to those sufferings.

He warned that in 50 countries in the world every one in eight Christians was exposed to a high level of persecution.

Last year, 2,983 Christians were killed because of their religion. More than 9,400 churches and other places of worship were destroyed, attacked or closed, he said adding that official statistics show that 260,000 million Christians were persecuted on the grounds of their faith.

He also spoke about the difficult destiny of many migrants on dangerous journeys and in this context, he criticised migrant smugglers as well as authorities that refuse to accept vessels with migrants.

Metropolitan Hrizostom said that the Christians were urged to make the world a better place for the ordinary man and woman.