Displaying items by tag: Africa

The Nigerian government is about to pass a bill that will punish those who pay ransoms with up to fifteen years in prison. It would also give a death sentence to those who commit abductions. Armed groups have kidnapped hundreds of people for ransom across Nigeria over the last two years. Most recently, a ransom of $240,000 was paid by the Nigerian Methodist Church after eight gunmen abducted its head, His Eminence Samuel Kanu, and two other pastors while they were on their way to the airport in Nigeria’s southeastern state of Abia. The clergymen’s driver and one other church member managed to escape. The 69-year-old recounted how the abductors showed them the rotted bodies of previous victims, threatening to do the same with him. Archbishop Chibuzo Opoko, who heads the Methodist church in Abia State, said paying the ransom was necessary.

Two of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted by Boko Haram extremists in 2014 have completed their master’s degrees in the USA. Lydia Pogu completed a masters in Human Services Administration, and Joy Bishara a masters in Social Work. ‘Boko Haram told us that school is a taboo for women and warned us that if we went back to school, they would come for us,’ said Lydia. ‘I thought all my dreams had changed, but God had a different plan for me.’

Kerry worked in a Christian hospital in sub-Saharan Africa as a physiotherapist to bring healing and hope to people largely unreached with the Christian message. Based in north Cameroon, she became part of a multinational (and non-denominational) team offering medical - and sometimes miraculous - solutions to the Fulbe (also known as Fulani) tribe. A gentle, gracious and unhurried people, the Fulbe are mostly Muslim. But many are now following Jesus, and they do not always first hear about him through the missionaries. Extended family groups, even across the border into Chad, have come together after having dreams of Jesus, asking Kerry and her colleagues to teach them more about the faith. A young man called Mohammed, whom Kerry introduced to Jesus four years ago, has since visited several of these groups, feeding their hunger to know more about this wonderful person who appeared to them in their sleep.

On 31 May the UN's top humanitarian official for the Horn of Africa predicted a devastating outlook for millions of Somalis, amid worsening famine. Before the end of 2022, 7.1 million people will be affected by drought and famine. He said that 1.4 million children face acute malnutrition, and 330,000 are likely to become severely malnourished. Currently 6.1 million Somalis are affected by this drought emergency. Of that number, 771,400 (mostly women and children) have been displaced from their homes in search of water, food and pasture. The outlook has worsened due to the prospects of a fifth consecutive failed rainy season. Pray for God to strengthen and empower all who are providing aid to the hundreds of thousands experiencing acute food insecurity. Pray for medics and medication to be released to those experiencing severe malnutrition and acute watery diarrhoea. Pray for those mourning the deaths of loved ones.

Gunmen burst into St Francis Catholic Church in Ondo state. They opened fire and set off explosives, killing dozens of worshippers, including many children, who were celebrating Mass on Pentecost Sunday. Legislator Adelegbe Timileyin told local media that at least fifty people were dead. While much of Nigeria has struggled with security issues, Ondo is widely known as one of the country’s most peaceful states. Its state governor said, ‘This vile and satanic attack is a calculated assault on the peace-loving people of Owo Kingdom. I appeal to our people to maintain calm and let the security agencies take charge. The perpetrators will never escape. We are after them. And I can assure you we will get them.’ While radical Fulani militants have terrorised the Middle Belt region over the past two decades, authorities are still investigating the source of Sunday’s attack.

On 15 May Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s president from 2012 to 2017, won the election and has returned to the top job. He faces numerous tough challenges, from a devastating drought that risks pushing millions into famine to deep political divisions within the federal government and state authorities. Arguably his biggest task, however, will be to tackle al-Shabaab and a recent rise in attacks, including 48 deaths from suicide bombings in March.' The president’s new administration will need to contend with the Islamist militants’ use of children. They use boys as spies, logistics operatives, and combatants, and girls as cooks, cleaners, and ‘wives’ as well as to spy or move weaponry. The country has a bulging young population with limited or no opportunities. Trust in the government and its security institutions is low, which means that al-Shabaab can lure young recruits with promises of money, marriage, or power.

This is one of the hardest times Kenyans have experienced. Four rainy seasons in a row have failed. The government declared a national disaster after only two consecutive failed rainy seasons. Since then, the short rains and the long rains have both failed again. Water is hard to find; cattle are dying. Even camels struggle to survive. The World Food Programme says half a million Kenyans could starve. Prolonged hunger and malnutrition have made people prone to disease: their weakened bodies can’t resist infections. In Muslim-dominated areas, Christians are usually left out when government food relief is distributed. Families used to earn their living as casual labourers or through small businesses, but normal life has ended with the catastrophic drought and famine which followed a series of other disasters.

Many face extreme poverty as drought and food shortages are serious challenges in this one-party state. Christians in denominations not recognised by the government are persecuted; many are under house arrest, and over 3,000 are in prisons that are beyond description. Some are kept in metal, unsanitary, unventilated shipping containers in the desert - tin cells that are almost too hot to touch by day and freezing cold at night. They are beaten to get them to renounce their faith. The government has seized church assets. All denominations are drawn together in fellowship through decades of war, drought, and government oppression, but the intense suffering of the Church in Eritrea is one of the untold stories. Pray that Christians may remain fervent for Jesus amid hardship and make a significant impact on their nation and beyond. Evangelicals now operate through underground networks in homes. Around twenty or more networks are known, but numbers are impossible to ascertain.

Kenya is in a world of hurt. Joy Mueller of Kenya Hope says, ‘They look at having no food to feed their families and no money to pay school fees or buy the things they need. For the third year in a row, these poor people are just devastated. First, the pandemic locked everything down, so rural Kenyans couldn’t buy supplies or sell their livestock at the market. Then right on the heels of the pandemic, they got hit with a severe drought. All the water sources dried up; pastureland was gone and animals were dying. For the people here, their animals are their bank accounts. 2022 seemed to be the start of something better when they got some beautiful rain in February. Hope sprang again, but then they were hit by African armyworms. They’re called armyworms because they march across the field eating every green thing in their path.’

Ayder Referral Hospital, Tigray’s main hospital, is now turning away sick people they can no longer treat. They have run out of supplies, casting doubt on the government’s claim to have opened the war-torn Ethiopian region to humanitarian aid. 200 patients, including babies with meningitis and tuberculosis and a 14-year-old boy with HIV, have been turned away. Two cancer patients waiting for operations were turned away due to no cancer drugs. These needy people are suffering from widespread famine and the ravages of a brutal 17-month war. Officials said they could only accommodate patients with food or money. A paediatric ward nurse said ten patients left when there was no more food: they said, ‘Pray for us; instead of dying here let’s go home and die there.’