Africa

The Catholic Register’s exclusive April 8 report about the threats two Nigerian clerics are facing for speaking abroad about Christian persecution in Benue State has sparked condemnations against religious intimidation from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria, an international religious freedom alliance and by U.S. and U.K. politicians.

A Nigerian Catholic bishop standing in the breach to alert the world about Christian persecution in Benue State has drawn verbal attacks and apparent escalating threats in recent weeks.

Pope Francis appealed to South Sudan leaders to “lower the tension in the country” as Catholic bishops in Sudan and South Sudan expressed alarm at the escalating violence in the world’s youngest nation and warned of a catastrophe if full-scale war returns.

A young seminarian has become the latest victim of killings in Nigeria, the West African country where attack and kidnapping of Catholic clergy is on the rise.

Mary's Meals has launched a worldwide emergency campaign in the wake of nearly 21 million children across southern Africa facing malnutrition as poor harvests and some of the worst African droughts in living memory continue to plague countries well into the new year.

A "silent genocide"—mimicking the Rwandan one of 1994—is occurring eastern Congo, said some Catholic Church sources, as shock greeted the killing of 70 people in a Protestant church in the North Kivu Province.

Amid what a Catholic charity called "unimaginable" suffering of civilians trapped in civil war brutality in Sudan, the United States declared that one of the fighting factions is committing genocide in the country and slapped sanctions on its leader.

The Kenyan capital descended into chaos June 25 as protests over legislation dubbed a finance bill left several dead and dozens injured. The country's bishops called for peace and urged the president not to accede to the measure aimed at raising revenue by levying additional taxes.