Rabat - The US Department of State’s Religious Freedom Report for 2013 estimates the number of Moroccan Christians at 8,000, mostly ethnic Amazigh.
According to the Religious Freedom Report, released on July 28, Moroccan Christians along with Shia Muslims, are the second largest religious group in Morocco after Sunni Muslims who consist 99 percent of the Moroccan population.
The report noted that there may be as many as 8,000 Christian citizens throughout Morocco, but many reportedly do not meet regularly due to “fear of government surveillance and social persecution.” It goes on to add that there are 4,000 citizen Christians (mostly ethnic Amazigh) who regularly attend “house” churches and live predominantly in the south.
More specifically, the predominantly Roman Catholic and Protestant foreign resident Christian community consists of approximately 5,000 practicing members, although some Protestant and Catholic clergy estimate the number to be as high as 25,000. Most foreign resident Christians live in the Casablanca, Tangier, and Rabat urban areas.
The report noted that the number of Christians approximately equals the number of the Shia Muslims in Morocco. “There are an estimated 3,000 to 8,000 Shia Muslims, most of them foreign residents from Lebanon or Iraq, but including a few Moroccan citizens,” the report said.
The report adds that the number of Jewish citizens in Morocco is estimated at 3,000 to 4,000. the remainder of the Jewish population is dispersed throughout the country. Over 2,500 of them reside in Casablanca and are “the remnants of a much larger community that has mostly emigrated.”
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