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A senior African church humanitarian official is calling for joint efforts to meet the growing humanitarian challenge in Tigray, the region in northern Ethiopia.

In a communiqué released 11 January, the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon condemned forcefully and unequivocally all those who perpetrate violence in the nation. “Violence will never win, but justice and peace will,” reads the text. “The prevalence of these gruesome and inhuman acts on Cameroonians indicates that this cycle of violence is in no way near the end.”

The WCC executive committee released a statement lifting up in prayer the people and churches of Ethiopia.

World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed horror at the news of a brutal attack on schoolchildren at the Mother Francisca International Academy in Kumba, Cameroon, on 24 October. Unidentified gunmen killed at least eight children in their classroom with guns and machetes, while 12 others were injured.

Conflict has ingrained itself in the people of Mozambique for many decades from the days of Portuguese colonial rule, to the ensuing civil war which only ended this century, and now Daesh along with the unseen enemy of COVID-19. So, the churches have their hands full as peacemakers.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with an estimated 210 million people, has a distinctive mix of people with almost equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, most of whom get on, living their normal lives intertwined in peace, except when terror strikes.

Amid persistent worldwide spiritual and moral appeals for peace, reconciliation, and support, the government of South Sudan and holdout opposition groups recommitted to cessation of hostilities in a peace declaration brokered by the Sant’ Egidio, a Rome-based lay Catholic movement.

The South Sudan Council of Churches in its Christmas message calls for peace among communities in South Sudan and respect towards the ethnic differences. Christmastime is a time for justice, peace, healing and reconciliation, the message reflects.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) offers its congratulations to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2019. Since his election as Prime Minister in April 2018, Mr Ahmed has championed an impressive programme of positive and inspiring reform initiatives, and played a decisive role in the reconciliation of the two synods and fostered unity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The achievement which this award particularly recognizes is his leadership in bringing an formal end to the twenty-year long fratricidal conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Churches across southern Africa are publicly saying #EnoughIsEnough,” with many denominations and congregations continuing to issue strong statements, arrange special prayer events, and speak out against rising levels of violence.

Both the Dutch Reformed Church and the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA) have been discussing gender justice and how to keep the momentum going on the unprecedented public demand for change.

Religious communities’ significant role in creating safer, sustainable and inclusive cities has been underlined at the United Nations Habitat Assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

A group of churches from Germany’s west inspired by the quest for justice and peace presented an ecumenical exhibition showing how “Peace takes a different way” at the World Council of Churches in Geneva.

At a meeting in Harare on Tuesday this week, church and civil society leaders in Zimbabwe strongly rejected all forms of violence and urgently called upon the state to restore the rule of law and constitutionalism in the exercise of state power.

Peace education to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between people involving the religious and secular sectors is needed to counter uncertainty fed by radicalization and xenophobia, says a leading human rights advocate.

The voices of young people will ring through the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 21 November as part of global celebrations for World Children’s Day linked to other events involving the World Council of Churches (WCC) in different places.