Since the beginning of airstrikes against Iran, ACN has remained in contact with project partners in the region, assessing the need for emergency assistance. Nearly 30,000 people have been displaced following a wave of overnight airstrikes that hit Lebanon on Monday, March 2, according to figures released by the Lebanese government. The attacks shattered the fragile calm that had held in recent months. The strikes were carried out by Israel as a response to attacks by the militant group Hezbollah ...

As tensions rise once again across the Middle East, the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) warns that a further escalation of violence could have devastating consequences for Christian communities throughout the region “The Christian presence in the Middle East must not die out,” said Regina Lynch, Executive President of ACN International. “A new spiral of violence could push already fragile communities beyond the point of survival.” Even in countries like Iran where Christians face discrimination ...

The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Leo XIV will visit Algeria, making this the country’s first-ever visit from a current pope. Leo, an Augustinian by formation, will visit Algiers and Hippo Regius – the historical name of Annaba – following in the footsteps of St. Augustine. In this interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Michel Jean-Paul Guillaud of Constantine-Hippone speaks about expectations for the visit and how the Church endures in the mostly Muslim nation of Algeria. ...

The only diocese in Mauritania has just celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. Bishop Victor Ndione, who has led the Diocese of Nouakchott for two years, tells Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) about the challenges of being a pastor in a transit country marked by clandestine migration, as well as the Church’s lack of resources. What is it that makes your diocese unique? The Church in Mauritania, which has just one diocese established in December 1965, comprises around ...

In eastern Ukraine people have grown numb to the danger of air raids but faith is growing. A bishop tells ACN that “without your help we would be like refugees.” People living in the east of Ukraine have been living in a state of conflict since 2014. The full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022 only intensified that experience. “Nobody expected the war to start in 2014, and then the situation got much worse after the invasion in 2022,” says Auxiliary ...

Thousands of Catholics in northeast Nigeria have returned to church in defiance of fear, following more than 15 years of violent insurgencies. Bishop John Bakeni and Bishop Oliver Doeme of the Diocese of Maiduguri in Borno State, Nigeria told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that worshipers were coming back “in their thousands, not hundreds.” Whuabazhi Pilgrimage Center – which ACN helped build – has seen record numbers attending. The bishops said: “People come back healed…it’s a ...