Worldwide: opening doors of education for girls
Educated girls help build a healthier family, stronger community and a brighter future. But 62 million girls are not in school. Half of them are adolescents. Countries with more girls in secondary school have lower maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates, lower rates of HIV/AIDS, and better child nutrition. Pray for: the five-year education programmes funded by USAID in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Liberia’s initiative ‘Girls’ Opportunities to Access Learning’; Malawi’s ‘Girls’ Empowerment through health and education activity; Jordan, where USAID provides training and materials to supervisors and teachers who are coping with large numbers of Syrian refugee students; and Bangladesh and Ethiopia, where human rights groups work to stop girls being married before the age of fifteen. The list is long: El Salvador, Georgia, Rwanda, Afghanistan are a few more places where girls with potential to change their world for the better need opportunities to grow.
Peace or war in South Sudan?
A report by 10/40 Window states that in South Sudan unbelievable atrocities are committed daily:gang rapes, dismemberments, babies and adults alike burned alive - heinous crimes carried out by South Sudanese forces and rebels. Warfare results in unplanted fields, no crops, famine, drought, starvation, disease, and death. No village is untouched, no family exempt. Mothers dash to get water, leaving children briefly untended. The vulnerable are attacked, raped, and murdered. Peace is elusive. Humanitarian access - food, soldiers, military aid - are all hindered from reaching their destinations by roadblocks and people in uniform. An urgent plea comes from a leader: ‘I think the next two weeks will determine the critical point in the peace process - either peace or war.’ April is the deadline for leaders to honour the peace agreement, stop the war, and begin implementing a transitional government. If they don't, donor countries will pull out, leaving the country with higher inflation and possible mayhem.
Cuba: pastor detained ahead of Obama's visit
Rev Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso, a prominent pastor and religious freedom activist, was arrested on Sunday just hours before President Barack Obama’s official state visit to Cuba. Rev Mario’s wife and their two young daughters were put under house arrest, and their phone connection was cut. Before this his wife was able to speak to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). His family and church have not been allowed to speak to Barroso directly, but she was told that her husband had been taken to Santa Clara, and was being refused food or drink. She added that the pastor had already been ill over the weekend, after a stranger pricked him with a pin while he was on public transport last week. As well as Pastor Barroso, dozens of human rights activists linked to the Ladies in White were also arrested and detained on their way to attend morning Mass in Havana. ABC reported that 304 activists were arrested. See
Yemen: US and UK urged to stop arming Saudis
Amnesty International has urged Washington and London to halt arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia, which is leading a military coalition against rebels in Yemen, for the sake of saving civilian lives. In a statement released one year into the Saudi-led intervention and entitled ‘Reckless arms flows decimate civilian lives,’ the rights watchdog said that the US and UK, the largest arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia, have continued to allow transfers of the type of weapons that have been used to commit serious abuses, generating a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale. The group has documented 32 airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the conflict. These strikes have violated international humanitarian law and killed 361 civilians, including at least 127 children. The World Health Organisation says that since March 2015 fighting in Yemen has killed 6,300 people, half of them civilians; the UN has warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
