Displaying items by tag: Africa

‘Peace is the wish of everyone in Kadugli,’ says Bishop Hassan James. The area suffered decades of civil war and has recurrent tribal violence, cattle theft, murder, intimidation and displacement. Against this volatile backdrop a symbol of hope for the present and future has risen and flourished - the Peace Episcopal Primary School, supported by the diocese. ‘We started the school as the society needed more options for affordable children’s education; especially orphans, poor families and Christian children,’ said Hassan. ‘It’s called The Peace School because living in a war zone, needing peace, we must teach children about peace.’ Over 480 pupils from ages 6 to 15 attend, with a separate kindergarten for 80 children. Bishop Hassan works hard to promote peaceful relationships between the Christian and Muslim communities. He regularly speaks on the need for peace via local radio and advocates for peace and reconciliation efforts with local authorities.

Spurred on by the 2020 EndSars anti-police brutality protests that morphed into calls for good governance, millions of young people in Nigeria have registered as first-time voters for the elections on 25 February. The man many are backing for president, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, is not that young at 61. Nor is he really a new broom in Nigerian politics as he was previously the vice-presidential candidate for the main opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But he is considered an outlier because of his accessibility, simplicity, and his record of prudence with public funds when he was a state governor. Under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is stepping down after two terms, young middle-class Nigerians have seen their finances battered by record levels of inflation. One in three of them cannot find a job, students have experienced incessant strikes by lecturers, and many of Nigeria's finest are desperate to leave the country. On top of this, widespread insecurity has seen armed groups kill more than 10,000 people and abduct more than 5,000 last year alone, according to the International Crisis Group. Mr Obi has been openly supported by Nigeria's huge evangelical Christian movement in the south, and can also rely on the votes of Christians who feel persecuted in the mainly Muslim north.

In 2019, Namibia passed legislation saying that women who, out of desperation, took the drastic step of abandoning their child, would no longer be prosecuted. Abandoned babies were dying. Safe places where an infant could be left were established, but there is still not enough awareness of the legal changes. Linda left her baby in a baby-saver box - a drawer built into a wall of a compound in Swakopmund that has a mattress and a blanket inside. There is also a letter. ‘Dearest mommy, please know that we do not judge you,’ reads the reassuring note. ‘We cannot begin to understand the circumstances that have brought you here.’ Linda knows her baby is safe. But despite the change in the law, babies continue to be abandoned in unsafe places. Between 2018 and 2022, 140 babies were abandoned - far more than those left in safe places.

Sometimes called ‘feathered locusts’, queleas are pests across eastern and southern Africa. A quelea eats 10g of grain daily. Not a huge amount, but flocks can number two million and collectively consume 20 tonnes of grain in 24 hours. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that £41m worth of crops are lost to the birds annually. The latest quelea invasion in Kisumu, amounting to ten million birds, has already decimated 300 acres of rice fields. Another 2,000 acres are still at risk during the harvest season. Worse hit is Narok county where the birds invaded wheat farms, destroying 40% of the harvest. The prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa has meant fewer seeds from wild grasses, a primary source of food for queleas. Kenyan scientists suggest this may be behind the invasion of cultivated land as the birds look for alternatives.

A Christian Aid poll reveals 53% of British adults agree that the government should be a leader in providing humanitarian aid and commit to financing a peace process in South Sudan. The leaders of Christian Aid, CAFOD, and Tearfund have written a joint open letter to the PM after the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited South Sudan last week. The charities warned of South Sudan’s growing hunger crisis with 54% of the population already living with crisis-level food insecurity. Despite the worsening situation, the UK's aid budget for South Sudan was cut by 59% in 2021. This triggered cuts to critical peacebuilding and resilience work with communities. CAFOD’s director said that the people of South Sudan have suffered much due to conflict and instability, but instead of being able to rely on UK support, the UK has cut its funding.

A cholera outbreak in Malawi began in March 2022, but fatalities doubled last month: 1,093 deaths have been registered. Malawi is one of the poorest nations in the world. In impoverished communities with little access to clean water, a deadly disease like cholera spreads quickly. The high fatality rate could be due to long distances between health facilities and affected communities, resulting in delayed access to rehydration treatment. Currently there are 600 new cases per day. Malawi usually counts a few hundred cholera patients per year. Pray for the Malawi Red Cross Society providing lifesaving treatment at the community level with oral rehydration therapy. Volunteers ensure that water supplies are safe and that sanitation facilities are working. They also go door-to-door, raising awareness on preventing the disease from spreading. Pray for more agencies and volunteers, to deliver all that is needed to halt the spread.

Violence against Christians returned in January, with more believers killed or kidnapped almost every day. Fulani herdsmen killed five Christians on 22 January, in northeast Nigeria, following the slaughter of twelve believers the previous Friday. In a predominantly Christian area of Bauchi state, residents said militant herdsmen attacked one community, killing five Christians and kidnapping another. The area has been attacked by Islamist terrorists and Fulani herdsmen for several years and many villages have been destroyed, driving Christian survivors to other parts of Nigeria. On 20 January Fulani invaded another predominantly Christian community and killed twelve believers. On the 17th five Christians were killed, and Christians are under siege following kidnappings and attacks. Release International is raising awareness about this ongoing persecution. ‘Out of these ashes’ will be launched in April to inform UK Christians and encourage them to pray for those suffering for Christ in Nigeria.

When Pope Francis visited the DRC he said that the rich world must realise that people are more precious than minerals in the earth beneath them. Speaking to dignitaries at the presidential palace, he talked of ‘terrible forms of exploitation, unworthy of humanity, where vast mineral wealth fuels war, displacement and hunger. Hands off the DRC. Hands off Africa. Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.’ Congo has some of the world's richest diamond deposits as well as gold, copper, and other minerals. ‘The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,’ he said. An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced in Congo; 26 million face severe hunger, largely due to armed conflict. Half of the population are Roman Catholics, and the Church plays a crucial role in running schools and health facilities, as well as promoting democracy.

Burkina Faso has been suffering a decade-long insurgency that has displaced nearly two million people. On 12th & 13th January, 66 women and children were kidnapped by the militant jihadists in the north of the country while they were gathering food. The military found them 125 miles away boarding a bus at an airport security checkpoint. It is not clear if their captors have also been detained.

Niger is an important transit area from West and Central Africa, Libya, Algeria and Europe. All must face the desert before reaching their destination. Between January and May 2022, Algeria sent 14,196 migrants like Cécé, back to Niger. Cécé, a tiler from Guinea, has just returned from Algeria where he could never leave the dangerous construction site where he was sporadically underpaid. It was not worth staying, so he returned home to the same job he had left. A roundtrip tracing political geographies, imagined borders, expulsions, deportations, targeted removals and defeats. The feeling of shame for what has been invested in terms of time, money, energy, dreams and regret is mixed with the bitter relief of still being alive. These are times in which the seas, deserts and especially the use of borders are nothing but sophisticated systems of point elimination.