The Birifor of Cote d’Ivoire

The Birifor of Cote d’Ivoire, numbering approximately 8,900 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are a Birifor people of northern Cote d'Ivoire closely related to the Lobi, sharing a Miiwo-Birifor language split across a population of roughly 200,000 spanning Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. They mostly adhere to Animism and Southern Birifor is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Birifor

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Cote d’Ivoire
People Cluster: Gur
Primary Language(s): Southern Birifor (biv)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 8,900
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 10% or Greater Evangelical
People Group ID: PG013050
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Birifor of Cote d’Ivoire

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

85%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Southern Birifor
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Birifor, Southern Speakers

Media Resources in Southern Birifor:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Bible Resources in Southern Birifor:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
2006 Wycliffe Bible Translators Inc.✓✓✓

1 entry

Or check out the Southern Birifor bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Birifor are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Birifor:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Birifor of Cote d’Ivoire

O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
readPsalm 10:17-18

Pray that God, in accordance with His good character, will give justice to those who are oppressed by sin and that they will know that His offer of salvation is for everyone.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
readRomans 5:1

Pray that the gospel will advance and that many who are far from God will receive the good news of salvation with joy and have peace with God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
readRomans 10:13

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ and sometimes have doubts, God will help them remember and trust the power of Jesus to save them from their sins.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
readMark 5:20

Pray that God will bring people who appear beyond hope to faith in Jesus and that they will then go and tell others of the marvelous things He has done.

Birifor, Southern Across Countries (ROP3 - 101479) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

2 people groups

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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