Christians in the UK must stand by their persecuted brothers and sisters “in spirit”, says Baroness Caroline Cox.

Baroness Cox, founder of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), said at the Baptist Assembly on Saturday that there were at least 250 million Christians suffering around the world because of their faith.

“They are suffering … we do have an obligation to them. We have a living faith today because so many others paid the ultimate price.”

She added: “We cannot afford to forget that when one part of the body suffers we all suffer.”

In a session on persecution, Baroness Cox recounted visits she had made with HART to people suffering at the hands of oppressive governments, including Christians in North Korea, Armenia, Sudan and Burma.

She went on to say that reaching persecuted populations had often meant entering countries illegally and under dangerous circumstances.

One Armenian pastor she met would wake up each morning, even at the height of a bombing campaign by Azerbaijan, to pray in the pitch dark and freezing cold for his people. They narrowly escaped being killed in a direct hit on his house when a slab of concrete fell on the spot where they had been sleeping just moments after they had got up to pray together.

“It was one time I was literally saved by prayer,” the Baroness joked.

The pastor’s response to the bombing was to say: “Whatever demonic forces come against us … we must never hate; we must always love.”

Baroness Cox went on to condemn the “brutal crimes against humanity” committed by the Burmese military junta against its own people, including torture, rape, forced labour and the use of human minesweepers.

In Sudan, meanwhile, she warned that radical Muslims were investing massively in the southern region, particularly Darfur, and that church leaders there were desperate for Christian mission agencies to return to help them counter the spread of Islam.

“Sudan is on a knife edge,” she said.

Baroness Cox said that although supporting suffering Christians did not necessarily mean joining them in receiving the persecution, she said praying for them and “being with them in spirit” were very important.

“While we are living in our comfort zones, our brothers and sisters are still enduring their Calvaries and Gethsemanies,” she said. “We have a biblical mandate to be with the lost, last, least, forgotten.”