Fighting resumed last week in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, ending a month’s long cease-fire and burying hopes for a peaceful resolution of the country’s civil war.

The conflict began nearly two years ago and has pitted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal government against the region’s rulers, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which Addis Ababa has since designated a terrorist organization. So far, as many as half a million Ethiopians have died, and more than 1.6 million people have been displaced.

“Respect for this truce over the past five months has saved countless lives,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in response to the renewed hostilities, which began last Wednesday. He warned that “a return to active conflict would result in widespread suffering, human rights abuses, and further economic hardships.”

Both the Ethiopian government and the TPLF reported fighting between their forces but denied instigating the fighting—blaming the other party.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Defence said in a statement that its Air Force shot down a plane carrying weapons for Tigrayan rebels from neighbouring Sudan on Aug. 24. TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda wrote in a tweet that the statement was “a blatant lie.”

Hostilities have escalated quickly since then. On Friday, UNICEF condemned an airstrike by the Ethiopian government that the organization said “hit a kindergarten, killing several children, and injuring others” in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital. Local medics say at least seven people were killed. International media cannot verify these numbers because the region remains inaccessible to journalists.

“Yet again, an escalation of violence in northern Ethiopia has caused children to pay the heaviest price,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell wrote in a tweet.

Meanwhile, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said Tigrayan authorities stole 570,000 litres of fuel from its warehouses in the region last Wednesday, jeopardizing humanitarian operations there. According to the United Nations, supplies of food, medicine, and fuel in Tigray are critically low. The organization says full-blown famine looms in Tigray as East Africa experiences its worst drought in 40 years.

“Millions will starve if we do not have fuel to deliver food,” WFP executive director David Beasley wrote in a tweet condemning the theft. Tigrayan authorities hit back with a statement claiming they had loaned more than 600,000 litres of fuel to the WFP this year.

More:   FP

Pray:

May your peace, that surpasses human understanding, be shed abroad in the hearts of all Ethiopians. (Philippians 4:6-7)

May your peace bring calm among the chaos that has unfolded in different communities throughout the nation of Ethiopia. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

God of peace, we pray too for love, kindness and compassion will lead to reconciliation and lasting peace.  (Ephesians 4:32)

Lagos, Nigeria – On July 15, Reverend Fathers Donatus Cleophas and Mark Cheitnum were in the empty rectory of Christ the King parish in Yadin Garu, a town in the Southern Kaduna area of northwest Nigeria when five armed men walked in. 

The gunmen confiscated the phones of both priests, who had stayed to celebrate mass after an ordination service in that diocese, and led them into the muddy grounds of a maize farm near the parish.  There, Cheitnum was shot dead, and his body was left in the rain, while his colleague was taken away.

“We did not have any scuffle, nothing,” Cleophas, who has since regained his freedom, told Al Jazeera. “All I can think of is because maybe Father [Mark] was wearing canvas [shoes] and he could not keep up with the pace at which we were moving.”

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), violence against Christians targeted on the basis of their religious identity has spiked, just as political violence against civilians has generally been on the rise too.  Its data shows that attacks on Christians in the country increased by 21 percent in 2021 compared with 2020. On average, monthly attacks have also risen by over 25 percent in the last year.

In June, gunmen killed dozens at a Catholic church in Ondo, spotlighting a possibly religious undertone to the country’s insecurity. The state government blamed the ISIL-linked ISWAP (Islamic State in West Africa Province) for the incident, but the group is yet to claim responsibility.

Experts say attacks against the church are also increasingly targeting Christian leaders, as operations of armed groups nationwide assume dangerous dimensions.  Indeed, between January 2020 and July 2022, there were 99 independent attacks against Nigerian clergy, ranging from abductions to outright murder, according to ACLED’s database which compiled records from local media reports.

“The data is a very vivid reflection of what is going on in our society [with regards to] the economic hardship and the booming kidnapping for ransom industry that we see today,” said Olajumoke Ayandele, a former ACLED researcher and currently a postdoctoral research fellow at New York University’s The Centre for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora.

More:   Aljazeera

Pray:

For the families of those who have lost loved ones to violence in Nigeria. (Psalm 34:18)

For the safety and security of Christian leaders in Nigeria.  May they remain faithful in the protection of the Lord.  (2 Thessalonians 3:3)

For the economic growth and development of Nigeria, that hardship may be overcome and replaced with growth and prosperity.