The Voice of the suffering in Latin America

On the night of August 23 to 24, more than 47 people were killed by armed gangs in Kenscoff, a Haitian town near Port-au-Prince. Bishop Pierre-André Dumas, Vice-President of the Bishops’ Conference, has issued an urgent plea to the government. The attack lasted several hours. During the “night of terror” from August 23 to 24, armed gangs attacked, among other locations, an evangelical church sheltering displaced people who had fled violence in Kenscoff, a town of around 50,000 residents situated ...

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck large parts of western and central Colombia on Monday, August 10. The epicenter was recorded in the municipality of San José del Palmar, in the Department of Chocó. According to the latest official report, the emergency has left 265 people dead, 3,494 injured, and 496 missing. The earthquake that his Colombia this week affected over 53,000 people and leveled at least 257 buildings. Cities such as Cali, Pereira, Quidbó, Manizales, and Armenia remain in a state ...

A devastating 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck much of western and central Colombia on Monday. While authorities assess the scale of the emergency, the Catholic Church is already accompanying affected communities and gathering information to gauge the most urgent needs. Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is in direct contact with the bishops of dioceses located in the affected areas in order to determine the impact of the quake and coordinate emergency aid to be channeled through the Church. The ...

As the country sinks into an unprecedented crisis, corroded by armed gangs, the Church remains standing, sowing hope in the midst of despair. The legislative and presidential elections due to be held in Haiti on August 30 – the first since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 – have been postponed until December. But the idea of elections still seems like a distant dream in a country devastated by the violence of armed gangs, who control vast areas ...

The Catholic bishops of Mexico have marked the centenary of the “Calles Law,” which imposed restrictions on the life of the Church and placed priestly ministry under state control in Mexico, with a message entitled “The church bells fell silent; their blood spoke” and subtitled “In memory of our martyrs, religious freedom and peace-building.” The law came into force on July 31, 1926, and, as the Mexican bishops recall, “faced with the impossibility of freely exercising their ministry,” their predecessors ...

ACN has committed to a second aid package, which, according to its executive president, will be “much higher than the initial grant. The Church has been present in the streets of La Guaira and Caracas, to care for and accompany the thousands of victims of the double earthquake that wrought great destruction in Venezuela on June 24. In a press conference organized by Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN), Archbishop Raul Biord Castillo, S.D.B., of Caracas said that ...