The Voice of the suffering in Africa

Fr. Otache’s plight highlights the difficult security challenges facing parts of Nigeria, where kidnapping for ransom has become more common. A Catholic priest abducted in Nigeria’s Middle Belt has been safely freed following a rescue operation involving security personnel and local vigilantes. Father John Inalegwu Otache, parish priest of St. Margaret’s Church in Ajegbe-Awume, Benue State, was kidnapped on October 13 alongside seven others and held for five days. According to local media reports, officers from Benue State Police Command ...

The Catholic Church plays an outsize role in the services it provides in Egypt, especially in the poorer regions, but its faithful continue to face difficult challenges as a minority within a large country. The Eparchy of Luxor has approximately 25,000 Catholics who are served by 37 priests and 70 women religious. The Eparchy also covers the Red Sea coast, which is an important tourism hub and has been attracting foreign tourists and internal migrants looking for better jobs. During ...

Forced displacement caused is hampering efforts to contain the spread of the highly contagious disease. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is facing a new wave of Ebola cases amid particularly challenging circumstances in the eastern part of the country, where armed conflict and the presence of rebel groups are limiting the ability of both the government and the Church to respond to the outbreak. During a visit to the international headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need ...

A bishop in the North African country hopes for change in wake of Leo XIV’s pastoral voyage. There is something about the desert that has always attracted those who long for Christ. Since the first monastics in Egypt, men and women have been leaving the comforts of the city to find God in the wilderness. This same spirit moved St. Charles de Foucauld to leave his native France and establish himself in Tamanrasset, in the Sahara, to be a witness ...

Fr. Luigi Maccalli learned in captivity to forgive and pray for his enemies, following the example of Jesus. In an interview with ACN, he shared his experience. Fr. Pier Luigi Maccalli was working as a missionary in Boamanga, Niger when he was kidnapped by armed men on September 17, 2018, and transported across the border into Mali. He soon realized these were not common criminals, but Islamist fundamentalists. That was the beginning of an ordeal that would change his life. ...

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda is preparing a catechism consisting of one hundred questions and answers inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s message of peace. With the support of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he hopes to print and distribute it widely among the younger generations of a region scarred by a decade of conflict. Cameroon is a very young country: around 60 percent of its population is under the age of 25. But in the country’s English-speaking ...