In the last six months of his sojourn abroad as a medical student, Maurice Nwokejiezi has, on at least two occasions, come up against forces determined to thwart his ambition. The first was in Ukraine where in February, as a…
Digital e-funerals split church emotions as migration redraws Africa’s bereavement norms
Pastor Tonderai Hlahla nurses “a small grudge, sort of,” he says. ‘”My former congregants are passing on 7,600 miles overseas in England and get buried there. I, their mentor, I only get to watch their funerals on WhatsApp video; it…
In Africa, inflation and a food crisis threaten not just the economy but people’s lives
While inflation troubles the United States and economies around the world, the rising cost of food and essential commodities is having a deadly effect across Africa. The challenge on the African continent is not just about the rising cost of…
Displaced by the war in Ukraine, some African students battle to continue their education in Germany
Three months after Russian soldiers invaded and unleashed war in Ukraine, some displaced African students determined to continue with their educations are finding it difficult to gain residence permits in European countries like Germany. This is happening against the backdrop…
The solution to a peaceful world is respecting other people’s religious freedom, U.S. leader says
Nadine Maenza is nearing the end of a two-year term as chair of United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and a four-year term as a commissioner. USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan government agency that monitors religious freedom worldwide and…
Christian leaders in Africa and Britain, in their Easter messages, call for peace, forgiveness and love
In African countries including Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mali and South Africa, the weeks preceding Easter were marked by lamentation, sorrow, tears and blood as terror attacks and counter attacks by government forces — along with natural disasters — killed…
Nowhere near the war zone, Africans feel the heat of the Russia-Ukraine war in their pocketbooks
As the war in Ukraine continues to rage on — leading to loss of lives and a refugee crisis in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and other countries — even the African continent, thousands of kilometers away, is feeling the…
One in 10 Black Americans are now foreign-born; here’s why that matters to the right-wing backlash against immigration
When Americans debate about immigration, they most often think of people coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Seldom do they first think of Black migrants. Yet Pew Research Center reports that today one in 10 Black people in…
Traditionalist United Methodists’ offer to pay for vaccination of African delegates is not the shot in the arm they thought it would be
United Methodist politics erupted in a public confrontation this week as three international bishops and a dozen other church leaders denounced a traditionalist group’s offer to provide coronavirus immunizations for General Conference delegates from countries with limited vaccine access. The…