NORTH KOREA 62 year old Canadian pastor released from prison A 62-year-old Canadian pastor who was sentenced to a life term of hard labour in North Korea for "crimes against the state" in December 2015 has been released on humanitarian grounds, the country's official news agency says. The release [...]
IRAQ Girl taken by IS reunited with her family “Pray for Christina’s family, still in shock to see their child again. It was a true miracle, a new birth and a new life” On the night of 6-7 August 2014, Islamic State (IS) occupied the historic regions of Nineveh [...]
ETHIOPIA Christianity brings peace, tolerance and human rights for women The Borana people live in the far south of Ethiopia, in a region bordering on Kenya. In many ways the Catholic Church is in her infancy here, since Catholic missionaries only arrived in the region for the first time [...]
SUDAN A chance for a better life – Oliver Maksan The Catholic schooling system is one of the pillars of the Church – and ACN is supporting its work Dust and mud brick houses everywhere – as far as the eye can see. The houses are indistinguishable in colour from [...]
Vatican hospital will care for seriously ill refugee children Bambino Gesù Hospital of the Holy See and the United National High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) have agreed to provide badly needed care to Jordanian and vulnerable refugee children with serious illnesses. The partnership will ensure that more than 300 [...]
SYRIA Strengthening faith and hope through sport in Aleppo The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is supporting a project for the rebuilding of a multipurpose sports centre for the Armenian Christian community Josué Villalón reports from Aleppo: “The area of East Aleppo has not attracted [...]
GUINEA - Church flourishes again after years of suppression by dictator Guinea is an overwhelmingly Islamic country in which roughly 85% of the population of 11.6 million people are Muslims. Christians make up only around 8%, while the remainder of the population is adherents of traditional African religions. For decades [...]
CAMEROON - “I only want to be healed so that I can become a priest.” Day after day, little Jean-Thierry made ice from twenty litres of lemon juice to sell on the street. He never even took a tiny taste of it himself, no matter how dry his throat became [...]
BRAZIL - ACN Bibles in the indigenous Macuxi language help strengthen the faith The indigenous Macuxi people today number around 15,000, of whom roughly two thirds currently live in the Amazon area of northern Brasil, close to the frontier with Venezuela and Guyana. The remaining third live in Guyana itself. [...]
SYRIA - “Your generosity is helping us to realise that we are not alone” It is six months now since the bombs stopped falling on the city of Aleppo in Syria. Although in the distance, at night time, you can still hear explosions in some still disputed zones on the [...]
