We are proud to present Mariam Wahba, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who will lead the discussion of the plight of persecuted Christians in Africa. She will examine the Janjaweed guerrillas in the genocide against Christians in 2003 in Darfur, Sudan and the influence of the Janjaweed in the Boko Haram, the Islamic State and the anti-Christian violence in Nigeria. This talk will confront the scale and persistence of religious violence across the continent, challender prevailing narratices that obscure its causes, and ask what moral and policy obligations follow from continued global inaction.

At the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Ms. Wahba focuses on Egypt and minorities in the Middle East. Prior, she was the Associate Director of advocacy with the Philos Project, a Hertog political science fellow, a Tikvah Fund journalism fellow, and a policy associate at In Defense of Christians. She graduated from Fordham University with a BA in Middle East studies, Arabic, and Jewish Studies. Born and raised in Egypt, she is a Coptic Christian and an advocate for the persecuted.