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In an attack on ethnic Amharas in western Ethiopia on 1 November, 54 people are reported to have been killed, in a tragic escalation of the ethnic violence which threatens the very fabric of the Ethiopian nation.

In Kabul on 2 November, gunmen attacked Afghanistans largest university, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than a dozen, in the second deadly assault on an educational institution in the capital resulting in mass casualties in just over a week.

And now in an apparent religiously-inspired extremist attack in Vienna which began outside the Seitenstettengasse Synagogue, four people are reported killed and another 17 wounded.

Stressing the WCCs categorical denunciation of all such attacks, and its rejection of any attempts to justify such violence on religious grounds, Sauca ended the public statement with a prayer: Merciful God, bring peace to a world increasingly riven by divisions and hatreds. Introduce compassion and wisdom to those leaders who so fearfully lack these qualities and who incite hatred and violence,he wrote.

Read the full statement of the WCC Interim General Secretary