Africa

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CNS) -- Born in southeastern Nigeria, Obianuju Ekeocha said she was raised in a community where people are pro-life without even knowing that wording.

originally from western Uganda. It is among hundreds of militias groups behind the deadly cycle of violence in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (CNS) -- One of Africa's most senior Catholic leaders has denounced the imposition of "foreign ideologies" across the continent and urged Africans to seek modernization without succumbing to Western influences that erode family bonds.

I met Sister Annunciata Chacha when I was working with the Musoma Diocese and needed help with Jipe Moyo, a shelter that helps children, mostly girls, who have been orphaned or abandoned.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- Catholic bishops in Kenya are urging the government to shelve plans to close two refugee camps in the north, which host refugees who fled civil war and famine in Somalia and South Sudan.

More than 20,000 people are hiding in the jungle and in dire need of food, says a humanitarian group.

27 years on, Rwanda commemorates the victims of the genocide which lasted for about 100 days between April and July 1994. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highlights that to avoid a repeat of this sad moment in history, “we must take a hard look at today’s world and ensure that we heed the lessons of 27 years ago.”

Poor countries cannot be expected to recover from the current financial crisis if the world returns to an economic model in which a small minority of people owns half of the world's wealth, Pope Francis said.

LAGOS, Nigeria (CNS) -- Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto criticized the Nigerian government for investing millions of dollars in rehabilitating Boko Haram's so-called repentant members in the belief that they would turn over a new leaf.

UYO, Nigeria (CNS) -- On a sunny afternoon, the Rev. Gideon Oyabugbe, a minister at a local Baptist church, walked into St. Vincent's Centre for Inclusive Education to pick up James, his 8-year-old son. James has autism spectrum disorder, a condition that impairs communication and social interaction.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- Catholic bishops in Uganda are mourning Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga of Kampala, who was found dead in his room April 3.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even in his old age, Cardinal Christian Tumi, the retired archbishop of Douala, Cameroon, was a force for peace and reconciliation in his country, Pope Francis said after the 90-year-old cardinal died April 2.

A $20 million loan from the U.S. international development bank will allow a program started by the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States to expand social-impact investing in enterprises operated by the Catholic Church in Africa.

Father Ferdinand Fanen Ngugban and six others died of gunshot wounds after armed gunmen invaded the grounds of St. Paul Parish in Ayetwar March 30, said the Diocese of Katsina-Ala.

Bishop Hyacinth Egbebo of Bomadi called on the Nigerian government to put an end to the oil spills in the Niger Delta region.

Whether people admit it or not, climate change and environmental destruction are forcing millions from their homes, and Catholics have a responsibility to assist them, Pope Francis wrote in the preface to a new document.

Less than a month after he recognized the "heroic virtues" of three Italian women religious who died caring for Ebola patients in Congo, Pope Francis did the same for three others who also contracted the disease and died in 1995.

Tanzanian President John Magufuli died of heart-related complications March 17 at a hospital in Dar es Salaam. He was 61.

Malians have come to see the African nation's Islamic clergy as a "fourth branch of government" in a country that has been buffeted by two coups in the past decade, said a professor from the University of Notre Dame who spent two years between the coups surveying Malians' attitudes on war, peace and politics.

Conflict is driving four countries -- Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria -- into famine, the World Food Program warned.