With the final numbers in, the Canadian government is kicking in $21.3 million to protect 20 million people in Africa and Yemen from imminent starvation, but Canada’s Catholic development agency is continuing to collect more funds even as Ottawa closes down its matching fund program.

As Canada continues to fall far short of raising $100 million for Syria relief, more than a quarter of the money raised so far across Canada was raised by three Catholic agencies.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Members of the Missionaries of Charity had to spend more than two hours waiting at police headquarters for clearance before they could deliver food, blankets and other promised relief to earthquake victims in a remote mountainous area of Nepal.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has so far collected $600,800 for relief efforts in Nepal.

The development arm of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development will match all funds collected by May 25.

NAMJUNG, Nepal - "Sir, because of luck, we all survived. But, we may die of hunger," Mithuram Pariyar said when a church relief team arrived after a four-hour drive from Kathmandu.

It’s unavoidable and it’s everywhere. In our newspapers, on our televisions and computers. No matter how hard you try to avoid it, it will always find a way to pop up. When it comes to bad news, we’re going to hear it one way or another.

NAMJUNG, Nepal - As the magnitude-7.3 quake hit, screaming and shouting filled the mountain village of Namjung, where approximately 600 people had gathered to collect relief material being distributed by Catholic Relief Services.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Anam Tamang was excited: A truck of earthquake relief supplies had finally arrived at Caritas Nepal headquarters in Kathmandu.

The April 25 earthquake that killed more than 8,000 and left close to 15,000 injured was bad, but “it could have been terribly, terribly worse,” said Canadian Jesuit Father Bill Robins.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Truckloads of relief material organized by church charities began moving across Nepal a week after the Himalayan nation was rocked by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake April 25.

VATICAN CITY - Santosh Kumar Magar said he was attending the ordination of a new priest in Okhaldhunga, a remote part of eastern Nepal, when the devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit April 25.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Inclement weather and logistical pressures were delaying aid to hundreds of thousands of Nepalese earthquake victims.

WASHINGTON - Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, called assertions that it had supplied birth control in Kenya "misleading, exaggerated and untrue."

ROME - The kidnapping of Jesuit Father Alexis Prem Kumar has made Jesuit Refugee Service reassess the way it operates in many high-risk countries, said an agency official.