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Making citizen protection “a top priority” and ensuring that a country’s wealth is distributed fairly are among actions authorities in the African Sahel region and the wider West Africa need to take to address the “multifaceted violence”, a Catholic Bishop has said.
Christian Professionals in Africa have commended the three heads of State of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in the Africa’s Sahel Region for the move to unite in countering conflicts.
The planned visit to the United States (U.S) by a section of religious leaders from West Africa to discuss the protracted insecurity in the Sahel region that dates back to January 2012 “will not have any impact”, a Nigerian Catholic Priest with specialization in matters insecurity and terrorism has said.
For over a decade, missionaries in Niger have been unable to reach various members of Catholic communities in the West African country owing to insecurity.
The Catholic Pontifical and charity foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, is inviting children from across the globe to join the “One million children praying the Rosary” campaign for countries experiencing war and hunger, especially those in Africa’s Sahel region, which has been described as the “world’s most neglected and conflict-ridden region”.
The military leadership in Burkina Faso needs to do “much” more to address the plight of the people of God in the West African nation who are yet to see “a strong signal in terms of peace”, the Cardinal in the country has said.
At the Eucharistic celebration organized at the Vatican to pray for peace in Burkina Faso, Francis Cardinal Arinze reflected on terrorism in Africa, delinking the menace from religion.
Catholics in Burkina Faso have been invited to offer special prayers for the victims of the attack on Solham village in the Northern part of the country that left at least 160 people dead.
Bishops in Burkina Faso have, in a collective statement at the end of their Plenary Assembly, raised concerns about rising cases of insecurity in the West African country saying the situation is “more worrying than ever” and called on relevant authorities to act ahead of elections scheduled for later this year.
Amid increasing concerns of insecurity in the Sahel, Church leaders in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, where places of worship have been targeted in attack, are planning a forum that will offer Christians in the landlocked country an opportunity to reflect on their Christian calling in the face of persecution.
As the crisis in the Sahel region deepens, with reports of recurrent terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Chad, the President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) has told ACI Africa that interreligious dialogue is quite significant in resolving the conflict and called on the West to stop arms trade on the continent.
The President of the international Catholic pastoral charitable organization, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Thomas Heine-Beldern, has described the just ended year, 2019, as a year with a significantly high record of attacks targeting Christians across the globe, including Africa where Christians have been murdered in West Africa.
A couple of days after Pope Francis advocated for interreligious dialogue in the West African country of Burkina Faso as the attacks by jihadist groups take a heavy toll on human life, delegates, among them Catholic Prelates and priests drawn from Bishops’ conferences in Burkina-Niger, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Ghana convened the first-ever Inter-Conferences Workshop to discuss the security concerns in the African Sahel region and outlined the role of some eight stakeholders in the process of ending the violence.
Catholic Relief Services is warning of increasing violence and displacement in the Sahel— the vast area of western and north-central Africa stretching from Senegal to Sudan.