This is the BBC.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

I'm Wesley Stevenson.

And I'm Shala McDonald.

Now this week we heard some numbers that sounded a bit familiar about how many Christians are killed each year because of their faith.

A new study shows more than 90,000 Christians were killed in 2016 alone. 30% of them at the hands of radical

Islam as terrorists. Wow powerful numbers. Powerful numbers maybe but we've been

here before because a couple of years ago there was a

similar claim that a hundred thousand Christians have been killed that they were

martyrs but the reality well put it this way there were a lot of questions about how the researchers had reached that figure.

So how reliable are the latest figures?

Similar claims to those heard on Fox News there were reported by many other news outlets and this is the

interview they were quoting.

An interview on Vatican radio with this man.

Dr Massimo Introvigne,

managing director of Centre for Studies on New religions in Toronto, Italy.

Dr Intravignia is an Italian sociologist and religious expert.

The rather crackly phone line is because we spoke to him from Korea where he was attending a religious

conference. Every year on December the 26th which is the day of remembrance for

Christian martyrs he gives an interview to Vatican Radio about the persecution of Christians.

It's a sensitive and politically charged subject as he acknowledges.

In order to avoid political manipulation, I emphasize that only a small part of this Christian dead are actually

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