Last month, after escalating violence and systematic killings in el-Fasher, the bishops met together to pray. On 29 October, they issued an urgent appeal for peace in Sudan, calling for all parties to ‘immediately cease hostilities’ and imploring the international community to respond.

The bishops’ October statement depicted the Sudanese people as facing a ‘grave situation’ and drew attention to ‘the ongoing conflict in Sudan and its devastating impact on the security, social and economic conditions’ which greatly affects ‘the lives of citizens.’

Archbishop Ezekiel explains to Anglican News that October’s appeal was all about ‘Urging groups to silence the guns, to stop the war and to speak peace. This is important. Because people are dying. People are hungry.’

Since that statement was made, Archbishop Ezekiel relays,  ‘There is nothing yet changed, but we have hope… We thank God that the Quad group is working very hard to bring the groups together, to ‘stop the war,’ and ‘bring peace’.

Read it all.

Sudan is facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. In October, the bishops of the Episcopal Church of Sudan issued an Appeal for Peace. This November, the Archbishop of Sudan, the Most Revd Ezekiel Kumir Kondo, has been in the UK to raise awareness for Sudan’s plight. To… pic.twitter.com/ZNASOcTqAs

— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) November 18, 2025

Precious in thy sight, O Lord, is the death of thy saints, whose faithful witness, by thy providence, hath its great reward: We give thee thanks for thy martyrs James Hannington and his companions, who purchased with their blood a road unto Uganda for the proclamation of the Gospel; and we pray that with them we also may obtain the crown of righteousness which is laid up for all who love the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

29 Oct 1885, James Hannington, @cmsmission missionary & first Anglican bishop of East Africa, speared to death in Uganda. Born Hurstpierpoint. Studied @OrielOxford, 1874 ordained. 1882-3 in E Africa but left due to illness, returned 1885. 'Blood of the martyrs is seed of church'. pic.twitter.com/yAX0ffvsoo

— Revd Nicholas Pye (@RevdPye) October 29, 2025

A letter of legal claim has been sent to St Andrew the Great, Cambridge (formerly the Round Church), on behalf of seven Zimbabwean victims of John Smyth. It alleges that senior clergy and church officers “orchestrated a cover-up that enabled Smyth to continue abusing boys for decades”.

The letter, sent by Leigh Day Solicitors, argues that the failure to report Smyth’s abuse in the UK between 1982 and 1984 “directly led to his relocation to Zimbabwe, where he continued to prey on vulnerable boys”.

The claimants are six men who say that they were abused as teenagers at Christian holiday camps run by Smyth in Zimbabwe, and the mother of Guide Nyachuru, a 16-year-old boy whose body was found in a swimming pool at one of Smyth’s camps in 1992. The abuse included forced nudity, beatings with table tennis and jokari bats, indecent exposure, groping, and intrusive conversations about masturbation.

Smyth, described in a review by Keith Makin last year as “arguably, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England” (News, 8 November 2024), moved to Zimbabwe in August 1984 and began to run holiday camps in the country. The move followed the completion in 1982 of a report by the Revd Mark Ruston, then Vicar of the Round Church, commissioned after a British Smyth victim grew so fearful of beatings that he tried to take his own life.

Read it all.

Letter alleges that senior clergy and church officers ‘orchestrated a cover-up that enabled Smyth to continue abusing boys for decades’ https://t.co/yqWhzbyyjl

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 7, 2025

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Herewith one story–Anglicans Gather to Honor Bishops Allison and Null

Anglicans from across the globe gathered together on September 15 at Prince George Winyah in Georgetown to honor the ministry of Bishop Fitz Allison. His ministry included teaching Ashley Null about justification by faith and ordaining him to the priesthood. During the service, Bishop Allison prayed for Ashley’s new ministry as the bishop of the Diocese of North Africa. Bishop Null’s episcopal ordination was held on May 11 at St. George—an historic Anglican church in Tunis just a few miles from ancient Carthage and St. Cyprian’s original cathedral. As the Anglican successor to St. Augustine, Bishop Null intends to continue the robust legacy of Reformation Anglicanism which Bishop Allison has championed for decades. Please join all who gathered at Prince George Winyah (PGW) in praying for the difficult ministry in North Africa and for the continued biblical focus of Bishop Allison and Bishop Null’s ministries. To God be the glory.

Read it all.

'Anglicans from across the globe gathered together on September 15 at Prince George Winyah in Georgetown to honor the ministry of Bishop Fitz Allison. His ministry included teaching Ashley Null about justification by faith and ordaining him to the priesthood. During the service,… pic.twitter.com/5YdkT8K6r9

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 1, 2025

Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Cyprian boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of the same our Lord Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Saint Cyprian, pray to God for us! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/zeSdI8B7zG

— Basilica.ro (EN) (@BasilicaNews) September 13, 2023

International observers are reporting that ISIS-aligned soldiers are beheading Christians and burning churches and homes in central and southern Africa – with some of the most brutal attacks happening in the nation of Mozambique.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) – a counter-terrorism research nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. – is sounding that alarm about what it describes as a “silent genocide” taking place against Christians.  

The Islamic State Mozambique Province (ISMP) recently released 20 photos boasting of four attacks on “Christian villages” in the Chiure district, in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, according to MEMRI. 

Read it all.

ISIS soldiers behead Christians in Mozambique, burning church and homes: 'Silent genocide' https://t.co/baKLyYMI65

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 7, 2025

More than two two years after it began in April 2023, the war in Sudan shows no sign of ending, with deadly consequences for the people of Africa’s third-largest country. On August 5th the World Food Programme (WFP), a UN agency, said that residents of el-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, faced starvation. It was a grim sign of the humanitarian toll of the war at a time when the locus of the conflict is shifting westwards, raising the prospect of a permanently fractured state.

El-Fasher, the capital of north Darfur, is the last major city in the region under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), one of the two main belligerents. The other, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has besieged the city since April 2024 to secure its Darfuri stronghold. Some residents have been able to flee the city and the Zamzam refugee camp on its outskirts, but a common destination, the nearby town of Tawila, is crammed and in the midst of a cholera outbreak. Since the RSF was ousted from Khartoum, the capital, in March, it has tightened the noose around el-Fasher.

That has made it harder for food to get in—and for people to get out. Aid agencies report that food prices are five times higher than in the rest of the country. Often food is unavailable, rendering redundant the mobile-money payments and community kitchens that have so far averted starvation. Local journalists report that many of the 300,000 remaining residents are turning to animal feed. The WFP says it has lorries ready to enter el-Fasher, but the RSF is blocking access.

Read it all.

Outsiders claim to want to stop the war in Sudan, which has displaced 13m people and caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Sadly, that notion seems as remote a possibility as ever https://t.co/c21lFgtUyl

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 7, 2025

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Samuel Ferguson and inspire in him a missionary vision of thy Church in education and ministry: Stir up in us through his example a zeal for a Church, alive with thy Holy Word, reaching forth in love and service to all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Samuel David Ferguson (1842-1916), Missionary Bishop for West Africa (Liberia) and the first African-American member of the Episcopal House of Bishops pic.twitter.com/pF8qSCQkfF

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) August 2, 2024

Thousands of feet above the Great Rift Valley that runs through East Africa, the small city of Iten, Kenya, calls itself the Home of Champions. It has long produced and attracted world-class running talent, its high altitude and red dirt roads a training ground for thousands.

The town also has a far less laudatory reputation. It is a well-documented center of a doping crisis that shows little sign of being tamed.

Runners come here for access to competition, coaching talent and the benefit of training in thin air, all to try to earn riches from running. Many Kenyans who try to join the elite endure cramped and dirty living conditions, little food and separation from their families in service of their ambitions.

In a region where the average annual income is the equivalent of little more than $2,000 and the competition so intense, the potentially life-changing lure of banned substances, referred to locally as “the medicine,” is obvious. A few thousand dollars in prize money or participation in a single overseas race can be the difference between runners and their families eating three meals a day and scratching around for the next bite.

Read it all.

Officials acknowledge that Kenya has a doping problem, but many athletes who are seeking an edge also want a way out of poverty. https://t.co/oOC3T6Ir7y

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) July 29, 2025

At China Mall , a vast supermarket in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, Rose Ahurra picks up a small turquoise squirrel. The toy flashes as she puts it in a trolley laden with towels, clothes, containers and an air fryer. The purchases indicate her place in the Ugandan middle class, which has flocked to China Mall since it opened earlier this year. “The prices are fair and I no longer have to go to lots of individual shops,” she explains.

But the floors of mostly Chinese goods also hint at an imbalance that worries African policymakers. Total trade between China and Africa was worth $296bn in 2024. Yet the value of what China exported west ($179bn) was much higher than what Africa sent east ($117bn). This year, partly as a result of the state support China is giving to its factories to boost the domestic economy, Chinese exports to the continent are on track to be 12% higher. African countries have long asked Beijing to make it easier to trade the other way, too. Many will have welcomed China’s announcement on June 12th that it will grant duty-free access to products from every African country except Eswatini, a tiny kingdom that recognises Taiwan.

The immediate impact may be minimal. But the policy could integrate African economies more deeply into Chinese-centred supply chains as the global economy is fragmenting. Geopolitically, China’s move is as subtle as a flashing turquoise squirrel. After 25 years America is set to end its own duty-free deal with Africa when the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expires on September 30th. It is imposing tariffs willy-nilly, slashing aid and banning African migrants. For its biggest competitor, that is an opportunity.

Read it all.

China is presenting itself to Africa as a benevolent trading partner, different from Donald Trump’s America. This is ironic, in a topsy-turvy way https://t.co/u5yd9rYewF

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 24, 2025

At a market in Tougbo, a small town in northern Ivory Coast, the smell of dried fish and fried dough filled the air. Children ran around the bustling stalls where women sold the corn and cassava they had carried on their heads for miles in the countryside. Muslim elders watched the crowds on the sandy main street, while Christian worshipers poured out of church after Sunday mass.

Yet the bustle belied an insidious threat.

About half of terrorism deaths worldwide in 2023 were recorded in the Sahel, the arid region in West Africa known for its seminomadic tribes and ancient trade routes. Emboldened by their success in the landlocked nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are moving south toward the Atlantic and into coastal nations such as Ivory Coast.

Read it all (the headline posted here is from the print edition).

New story out this week based on a 500 mile trip last fall along the border between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso to document how the Al Qaeda-affiliated JNIM is moving south from the Sahel towards coastal countries. pic.twitter.com/bfskZC5ewO

— Elian Peltier (@ElianPeltier) June 17, 2025

At least 200 displaced people believed to be Christians were killed in Nigeria’s troubled Middle Belt last week. The premeditated attack on Friday night was described by a senior Anglican cleric as the work of “a well-trained, well-equipped and well-funded” Fulani Islamist militia group.

The Ven. Dr Hassan John, Director of Research for the Church of Nigeria, said that attackers approached three villages in Benue state, including Yelwata, which they surrounded before opening fire. “Those that tried to flee were either shot or cut down with machetes,” he said. He explained that the initial death toll of more than 100 rose as more bodies were discovered and others, who had been gravely injured, died later.

Dr John told the Church Times that the violence in central states such as Benue should not be understood as a “fight for scarce grazing land” by Fulani Muslim herders driven south by climate change, as it is sometimes termed by some foreign media and governments. “The perpetrators and their sponsors are known and their agenda, under the guise of fighting over grazing land, has been to strategically wipe out villages, particularly Christian villages, leaving out Muslims in the villages, even if they reside side by side with Christians,” he said.

Read it all.

At least 200 displaced people believed to be Christians were killed in Nigeria’s troubled Middle Belt last week https://t.co/FoqcsReaho

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 19, 2025

In cities, both big and small, across large swaths of Europe and North America, it is becoming common to see groups of Africans engaging with the Christian faith.  

As African migration — driven largely by economic hardship and the search for better opportunities — continues to grow, churches are becoming more than just places of worship.

Churches have evolved into spiritual lifelines and vital community hubs that help preserve cultural identity, reinforce moral values and provide a sense of belonging far from home. In addition to preserving the African way of worship, these churches have also made Christianity vibrant across large parts of North America and Europe, where faith has lost much of its cultural and societal importance.

African Christians are increasingly occupying a prominent place within the multicultural religious and social landscape of these communities. In the past four years, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have topped the list of African countries with the highest numbers of immigrants to the United Kingdom. Alongside this trend, there has been a notable surge in African churches across the U.K. and Europe.

This dynamic has taken on many forms. For instance, services in these African-dominant churches are characterized by energetic singing, dancing and lengthy preaching. The doctrine is typically rooted in Pentecostal or evangelical traditions, with emphasis on divine intervention, prosperity, healing and spiritual warfare. Many incorporate African music styles into worship.

Read it all.

As African migration to Europe and North America — driven largely by economic hardship and the search for better opportunities — continues to grow, churches are becoming more than just places of worship. https://t.co/UBBL4RYqSB

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) June 11, 2025

O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before thee the blessed martyrs of Uganda, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Uganda Martyrs day Commemoration is a relation of;
– A Celebration of Faith
– A Call to Unity
– A Reflection on Values
President Yoweri Museveni and the first lady mama Janet have graced the Anglican Martyrs Celebrations in Namugongo. Leaders are indeed God Chosen. pic.twitter.com/4hjakrEZc1

— Kemigisha Zoey (@kemigishazoey2) June 3, 2025

Bp Robert Innes writes–‘The consecration brought together bishops, clergy and lay people from many different countries, as well as local Roman Catholic and representatives. On the right of the photo is Bishop Antony Ball, Ashley’s predecessor, who is now the Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. North Africa is a neighbouring diocese to Europe – it is only 125 miles from Tunis to the coast of Sicily – so I was pleased to be able to support their ministry personally as well as on behalf of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Ashley Null is a serious scholar who retains an academic post in Berlin, and is a world leading authority on Thomas Cranmer. He had designed the liturgy to reflect Cranmer’s theological insights. Dressed in a Canterbury cap (one needs a hat in the North African sun), Bishop Ashley could quite easily have been mistaken for a reincarnation of Cranmer himself. 

The consecration was the centre-piece of a celebratory weekend in Tunis, that included concerts and visits to the ancient sites. Of course, as Archbishop Samy reminded us in his sermon, Christian ministry in the Islamic context of North Africa is hard, and the consecration is really just the honeymoon ahead of likely sacrifice and possible suffering.’

Read it all.

Congratulations to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ashley Null: the new Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of North Africa! pic.twitter.com/Xlxz0IsYie

— Richard Tarsitano ⚓️ (@GodRemembrancer) May 13, 2025

The  Sudan conflict, which began two years ago on Tuesday, is “the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement crisis”, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) has said.

The fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support forces (RSF) has spread across most of the country (News, 21 April 2023).

About 150,000 people are estimated to have died during the conflict, the BBC reports. CAFOD reports that ten million people have been internally displaced, and more than three million have fled into neighbouring countries.

The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is hosting ministers from donor countries and the wider region at a conference in London, on Tuesday, to encourage a ceasefire and the protection of civilians.

Read it all.

Get Sudan peace talks up started, international conference is urged https://t.co/DhDh0X4yar

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 15, 2025

“She left no last words. She was dead when she was carried away,” says Hafiza quietly, as she describes how her mother was killed in a city under siege in Darfur, during Sudan’s civil war, which began exactly two years ago.

The 21-year-old recorded how her family’s life was turned upside down by her mother’s death, on one of several phones the BBC World Service managed to get to people trapped in the crossfire in el-Fasher.

Under constant bombardment, el-Fasher has been largely cut off from the outside world for a year, making it impossible for journalists to enter the city. For safety reasons, we are only using the first names of people who wanted to film their lives and share their stories on the BBC phones.

Hafiza describes how she suddenly found herself responsible for her five-year-old brother and two teenage sisters.

Read it all.

Today marks 2 years since the start of the war in Sudan. Colleagues at @bbcworldservice smuggled phones into the besieged city of el-Fasher in North Darfur to get 1st hand accounts from the residents there. Reporting by @HebaBitarhttps://t.co/ozyYtYQOof

— Mayeni Jones (@MayeniJones) April 15, 2025

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.

The RC Bishop of Makurdi, Dr Wilfred Anagbe, whose diocese is in the Middle Belt state of Benue, said on Tuesday that the international community needed to acquire a “clear narrative of what is going on. Previously it has been said it was based on climate change and farmers and herders clashing. . . That is not the reason.”

He spoke of a “clear, orchestrated agenda or plan of Islam to take over the territories” of people who were “predominantly Christian”. In some parts of Nigeria, villages were being given new Islamic names. “It is about the conquest and occupation of the land.”

Climate change was occurring in other countries, without simultaneous forced displacement, he said. Benue State was 99 per cent Christian; its economy was not based on rearing cattle.

Read it all.

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.https://t.co/Qmiq0Lh1aE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 28, 2025

Nearly four years ago, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from a list of countries whose threats to religious freedom are of “particular concern,” but continued attacks on Christians and other religious groups by Islamist militias have prompted calls from local faith leaders and members of the US Congress for the designation to be restored.

In Africa’s most populous nation, a deadly cycle of violence has unfolded for several years, with Christian clergy and laypeople as well as moderate Muslims falling victim to murder and kidnapping. The Christian nonprofit Open Doors recently reported that in 2024 some 3,100 Christians were killed and more than 2,000 kidnapped in Nigeria.

Last week, US Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, held a hearing on religious freedom violations in Nigeria that included testimony from Catholic Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, in central Nigeria, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a former US Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioner.

Read it all.

After thousands of deaths and kidnappings, Nigerian Christians call on the US to recognize their persecution.

“We live in fear, because at any point it can be our turn to be killed.”https://t.co/ciqtVMB2Ls

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 24, 2025

Rising political tensions in South Sudan threaten to drag the country into a new civil war, but even if rival factions can safeguard a 2018 peace deal, more fighting is set to occur in the northeastern Upper Nile state, which will likely draw in growing involvement from Sudan’s warring parties. On March 18, the party of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar, SPLM-IO, announced it was halting its participation in key provisions of a 2018 peace deal, including joint security and ceasefire monitoring committees, until authorities released allies of Machar who are currently being detained. The announcement comes amid rapidly surging tensions between Machar and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who in early March ordered the arrest of pro-Machar figures after the White Army, a militia drawing support from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, captured the town of Nasir in Upper Nile state on March 4….

Read it all.

🇸🇸 Rising tensions and violence in South Sudan's Upper Nile State risk reigniting civil war, threatening the fragile 2018 peace deal.https://t.co/BfMf97HiCx

💻 Jan Pospisil, @covcampus#Politics

— The Conversation Africa (@TC_Africa) March 21, 2025

In recent years, Nigeria has seen a surge in kidnappings and violent attacks. Christians living in the country’s five southeast states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo have said violence has affected their religious lives.

“Insecurity in the southeast affects religious activities. In some places in Imo State, especially in Orsu and some parts of Orlu, [most people] don’t attend church services on Sundays,” said Obi Ugochukwu, a Christian based in Imo State. “Even vigils are like things of the past because movement during the nighttime is not advisable.”

Experts said there are different groups responsible for the violence in the region.

“There are over 20 groups perpetrating violence in the southeast. We have Fulani herdsmen and street criminal entities,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, founder of the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), a human rights and democracy advocacy organization.

Read it all.

In recent years, Nigeria has seen a surge in kidnappings and violent attacks. Christians living in the country’s five southeast states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo have said violence has affected their religious lives.https://t.co/CMHR4s513b

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) March 19, 2025

O God, the King of Saints, who didst strengthen thy servants Perpetua, Felicity, and their companions to make a good confession and encourage one another in the time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today's the feast of St Perpetua and Felicity, by tradition 2nd Century Carthaginian martyrs. They stand either side of St Alban in typical Kempe glass at St Mary, High Pavement, Nottingham. pic.twitter.com/9gS1EOYLDb

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) March 7, 2025

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land that are under threat from encroachers.

The church’s initiatives involve venturing into coffee farming to transform unused land into productive agricultural spaces, registering mass tracts of untitled church land, issuing spiritual warnings and pursuing legal action against land grabbers.

The church said the initiatives will safeguard property and contribute to economic growth and social stability — ensuring that church land remains a valuable resource for future generations.

For nearly four decades under President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement government, land grabbing has remained a significant challenge, not only for the other sections of society but also for the church. This issue has led to the displacement of thousands of impoverished Ugandans and even the demolition of churches. In 2020, a renowned land grabber demolished 40-year-old St. Peters Church in Ndeeba, in Kampala, sparking outrage among Christians.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land: transforming unused land into productive agricultural spaces, mass registration of untitled church land, spiritual warnings and legal action.https://t.co/OWkv1YpB5H

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) February 13, 2025

Out of the depths, O Father, we wait for your wisdom. Out of the silence, O Jesus, we listen for your voice. Out of the heavens, O Holy Spirit, we wait for your gifts.

–from the Kikuyu people of Kenya (slightly edited; KSH).

Grand Rising#WeekendVibes #SaturdayMotivation #winter #weather #StormHour #sunrise #grandrising#GoodVibesOnly #jefinuist #Scotland #OuterHebrides pic.twitter.com/2VD9oD9gpa

— DaliMach (@frenchscotjeff) February 8, 2025

The Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of North Africa is delighted to announce that The Revd Canon Dr Ashley Null has been elected as the next bishop of North Africa.  The Electoral Synod met on 4 February in N’Djamena, Chad, in the context of a Diocesan Synod that will continue until 6 February.  

If the Synod of the Province of Alexandria confirms this election Dr Null will become the second, and first elected, bishop of the Diocese of North Africa, covering five countries (Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia) and including the territory of the see of St Augustine of Hippo. 

Read it all.

Ashley Null elected Anglican Bishop of North Africa https://t.co/K997BYdPlG via @Anglican Ink © 2025

— Duane Alexander Miller (@DrDuaneMiller) February 6, 2025

People in the Congolese city of Goma are “terrified in their homes”, the Bishop, the Rt Revd Martin Gordon, has said, as violence escalates and humanitarian conditions worsen.

Operations by the rebel armed group M23, which is backed by Rwanda, and Congolese Army forces have blocked key roads and closed all supply lines to Goma.

Bishop Gordon, who left Goma this week, said on Wednesday that people in the city were without power and in many areas there was no water. “The M23 seems to have control of large parts of the city,” he said. “The Congolese army are resisting in other areas. Civilians are being caught in the crossfire. Bodies are lying in the streets; 4000 prisoners have escaped.”

Camps of internally displaced persons had emptied, he said, as people fled to the city centre; churches were “filling as places of refuge”, and hospitals were “overwhelmed”.

Read it all.

Hospitals in Goma are swamped, bishop warns in peace plea as violence escalates https://t.co/TbawjMm5LS

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 30, 2025

The leaders of more than half of Africa’s nations gathered this week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s sprawling seaside metropolis, to commit to the biggest burst of spending on electric-power generation in Africa’s history.

The World Bank, African Development Bank and others are pledging at least $35 billion to expand electricity across a continent where more than a half-billion people still don’t have it. About half of the money will go toward solar “minigrids” that serve individual communities. The loans will come at below-market interest rates, a crucial stipulation as global lenders usually charge much higher rates in Africa, citing higher risks.

In an interview, Ajay Banga, the president of the World Bank, cast the initiative in sweeping terms where economic development met societal stability and basic human rights. “Without electricity, we can’t get jobs, health care, skills,” he said. The success of electrification, he said, is “foundational to everything.”

The summit’s promise is to get half of Africa’s 600 million unelectrified people powered up in just six years. That averages out to five million people a month. Mr. Banga said the World Bank, on its own, had not yet even passed the one-million-a-month mark.

Read it all.

Expecting to electrify 300 million Africans by 2030, Mission 300 is meeting in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam.

They hope to illuminate NASA’s very dim nighttime image of Africa.

Today's econlife blog: https://t.co/M63ERMSlJ3#econlife pic.twitter.com/CqnJyBJZvZ

— econlife.com (@Econlife) January 28, 2025

Werra Maulu Botey could not bear to close his daughter’s coffin. Waiting to bury her, he slid the rough wooden lid back, again and again, to adjust her small head and smooth the cloth that cradled it away from her cheeks.

Olive died of measles, at the age of 5, the evening before. She was the first child to die that weekend in an emergency measles treatment center in the town of Bikoro, in the northwest Democratic Republic of Congo. The second was her cousin, a 1-year-old girl.

Measles is sweeping through the children of Bikoro, as it does every couple of years, creeping, then flaring, across this vast country.

It is on the rise in other parts of the world, too — including in some communities in the United States — though the measles vaccine has been in use since 1963 and is believed to have saved more lives than any other childhood immunization.

"Werra Maulu Botey could not bear to close his daughter’s coffin. Waiting to bury her, he slid the rough wooden lid back, again and again, to adjust her small head and smooth the cloth that cradled it away from her cheeks."

Powerful report by @snolen on threat of measles in #DRC pic.twitter.com/QHGY5wbR8F

— Joe English (@JoeEEnglish) December 18, 2024

A sombre mood engulfed a village in Kenya’s Rift Valley last week as dozens of medical interns joined other mourners at the burial of their colleague who had taken his own life.

Speaker after speaker lamented the loss of Francis Njuki, a 29-year-old trainee pharmacist, whose family told the BBC about his feelings of exhaustion and frustration over the non-payment of his salary by the government since he started working as an intern in August.

He is the fifth medic to kill themselves in Kenya in the last two months because of “work-stress hardships and lack of responsive insurance cover”, according to Dr Davji Atellah, the secretary of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) – adding it was not something the union had ever recorded before.

There had also been five attempted suicides by KMPDU members this year, the medical body said.

Read it all.

'Thankless job' – why trainee Kenyan doctors are taking their own lives https://t.co/vc8gLRQQpg

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 16, 2024

The sister of a 16-year-old boy who drowned while swimming naked at a Christian holiday camp in Zimbabwe run by child abuser John Smyth blames the Church of England for his death.

“The Church knew about the abuses that John Smyth was doing. They should have stopped him. Had they stopped him, I think my brother [Guide Nyachuru] would still be alive,” Edith Nyachuru told the BBC.

The British barrister had moved to Zimbabwe with his wife and four children from Winchester in England in 1984 to work with an evangelistic organisation.

This was two years after an investigation revealed he had subjected boys in the UK, many of whom he had met at Christian holiday camps run by a charity he chaired that was linked to the Church, to traumatic physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

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What was meant to an exciting holiday camp ended in death for one Zimbabwean boy.
Our story about how a failure to act in the UK led to Guide Nyachuru’s death and dozens of cases of abuse of many others in Zimbabwe.

https://t.co/XLpLtHzCYg

— Shingai Nyoka (@shingainyoka) November 14, 2024