General

Easter for Egypt’s Copts: mourning loved ones amid tight security

April 18, 2017 Egypt Alexandria, Beheira, Cairo, Copts, Kom El-Loufy, Tanta

During Easter Mass in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria deacons carried pictures of the seven people killed in the Palm Sunday attack. Photo: Open Doors International

Christians in Egypt celebrated Easter amid tight security and in a sombre mood. While worshippers gathered in both Alexandria and Tanta, in the churches that were attacked last Sunday, authorities made a number of arrests in connection with other possible planned attacks. However, violence continued in Kom El-Loufy, in the . . . Read More

Pakistan prevents another Easter attack on its Christians

April 18, 2017 Pakistan Easter, Islamic State, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Lahore, Peshawar, Taliban, Youhanabad

Pakistan’s security forces say they prevented a “major” terror attack on Christians in Lahore over the Easter weekend. The city of Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, was the scene of a deadly suicide bomb attack on Easter Day last year, when 75 people were killed and 340 injured. A splinter . . . Read More

Preacher to the FARC reflects on defeat of Colombia’s peace deal

April 13, 2017 Colombia FARC, Russ Stendal

Russell Stendal, right, meets with FARC negotiators Yuri Camargo, left; and Noel Pérez, center, in Cuba in Early 2015.

For more than 50 years, Colombia had been at war with itself. In October 2016, after four years of peace talks brokered by Cuba, the Colombian government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, brought a peace proposal to Colombia’s voters. Then, Colombia’s divided voters . . . Read More

Churches feeding hundreds of Dunkirk camp homeless after fire

April 13, 2017 Calais, Converts, Dunkirk, France, Grande-Synthe, La Linière, Migrants, Refugees

Churches are helping to feed hundreds of migrants displaced by the razing of a migrant camp in northern France on Monday night (10 April). The local mayor’s office asked pastors Robert Desprès and Lydie Granger, leaders of churches in Dunkirk and St-Omer, to fund and distribute emergency meals for around . . . Read More

Between limbo and hope: celebrating Easter with the exiles of northern Iraq

April 13, 2017 Iraq Ankawa, IDPs, Islamic State, Karamles, Palm Sunday

Members of Karamles' Chaldean church clear up debris left after IS damaged their building, ahead of Palm Sunday 2017.

For the Christians of northern Iraq, this Easter is their third separated from their homes. But for some, it could mark the beginning of the end of their displacement, following military victories against Islamic State that have won back much of the territory the jihadists seized three years ago. “Next . . . Read More

Bombed Egypt church cancels Easter celebrations

April 13, 2017 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Easter, Palm Sunday, Pope Francis, Tanta

One of the priests at the Mar Girgis (St George) Cathedral in Tanta, one of two churches attacked by suicide bombers on Palm Sunday, says his church will not hold its usual Easter Day celebrations as a mark of respect towards the families affected. “There will not be any festivities, only . . . Read More

Good Friday marks 3 years of agony for Chibok parents

April 13, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Muhammadu Buhari

For the families of the 195 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitories three years ago tomorrow (14 April 2014), grief and despair have been compounded by fear, as the perpetrators of their agony continue to terrorise their town and carry out further abductions with impunity. Since Boko Haram jihadists abducted . . . Read More

The uncountable cost of Egypt’s Palm Sunday attacks

April 13, 2017 Egypt Palm Sunday, Tanta

As Egyptian society slowly recovers from the shock of the twin suicide bomb attacks on two Coptic churches on Palm Sunday, the real picture of the devastation caused is starting to emerge. The victims have now been buried, while dozens of wounded Christians remain in hospital – some in a . . . Read More

Mali: 2 months on, still no news of kidnapped nun

April 12, 2017 Mali Bamako, Beatrice Stockly, Gao, Gloria Argoti, Kidnapping, Mali, Timbuktu

It’s been more than two months since a Colombian nun was kidnapped in southern Mali, a relatively safe part of the country, which has been mainly unaffected by Islamist attacks. Gloria Argoti, in her sixties, was kidnapped on 7 Feb, when assailants broke into her convent in Karangasso, 300km from . . . Read More

India’s churches also targeted on Palm Sunday, but Modi stays silent

April 11, 2017 India BJP, Haryana, Hindu nationalism, Madhya Pradesh, Narendra Modi, Rajasthan, RSS, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticised for condemning the Palm Sunday attacks on churches in Egypt but failing to condemn attacks in his own country. On the same day that two churches were bombed in Egypt, five churches in India – in five different states – were targeted . . . Read More

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