– Tej Francis
Email: tejfrancis@gmail.com
U.S
CORONAVIRUS DISRUPTIONS THREATEN STARVATION FOR 265 MILLION PEOPLE
(Aleteia) Massive disruptions in the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic are leading to the threat of starvation for millions of people around the world.
In some nations, civil unrest and natural phenomena are already impinging on people’s ability to grow and harvest food. The pandemic and the lockdowns needed to contain it are making the situation even worse.
“The pandemic is a crisis on top of a crisis in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia,” said Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the foreign aid and development agency sponsored by the bishops of the United States. “The severe health risks are only part of the coronavirus outbreak. Lockdowns are hampering people from planting and harvesting crops, working as day laborers and selling products, among other problems. That means less income for desperately hungry people to buy food, and less food available at higher prices.”
Pope Francis also addressed the issue on Thursday April 23rd, during morning Mass.
“In many places, one of the effects of this pandemic is that many families find themselves in need, and they are hungry,” the pope said. Many families are not working and do not have food to put on the table for their children, he said.
On top of the 135 million people already facing acute food shortages, another 130 million could go hungry in 2020, Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, told the New York Times. That means an estimated 265 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.
IRAN
IRAN SENTENCES CHRISTIAN CONVERT TO 10 LASHES FOR ‘DISTURBING PUBLIC ORDER’
(CNA) Iran has sentenced a 21-year-old Christian woman to prison and lashing for “disturbing public order,” after she protested the destruction of a passenger jet by the military.
Mary (Fatemeh) Mohammadi, a 21-year-old Iranian convert to Christianity, was arrested on Jan 12 after taking part in anti-government protests that followed the shooting down of a passenger jet, Ukrainian Air Flight 752, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG). Iran announced several days after the incident that the IRG mistakenly shot the plane down, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board the flight.
In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Mohammadi said her sentence of three months and one day in prison is suspended for one year. She was also sentenced to 10 lashes.
Mohammadi said she has been tortured in prison and suffered “terrible conditions” for “protesting against the slaughter of human beings.” She said she did not appeal her sentence “because the appeal courts have turned into affirmative tribunals.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) tweeted a condemnation of Mohammadi’s sentencing on Wednesday, saying that “No peaceful activist should be targeted on the basis of their religious beliefs.”
SYRIA
SYRIA: WAR PLANES ‘FILL THE SKIES’ – IN SPITE OF THE PANDEMIC
(ICN) With violent attacks in north-east Syria continuing in spite of the coronavirus lockdown, Christians – whose numbers have already plummeted by nearly 60 percent within a decade – are anxious to flee and join relatives in Europe, according to a senior Church figure in the region.
Monsignor Nidal Thomas, vicar of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Hassake governorate (Al-Jazeera), described how, while shops are shut and people are stuck at home, “war planes continue to fill the skies”.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Monsignor Thomas warned of the economic impact of the lockdown.
Mgr. Thomas said that, with rising prices and scarcity of some items, “Christians must spend a lot of their income on food and other necessities”.
He added there have been no COVID-19 cases in a region where a curfew is in place, with schools and businesses closed and people only allowed to shop for necessities.
Mgr. Thomas said: “There are still attacks in the region. The Kurds, the Russians, the Americans, the Turks, Hezbollah and the coalition forces are harassing everybody. War planes continue to fill the skies, especially above the prisons full of Muslim extremists guarded by Kurdish militia. The attacks don’t stop – only two or three consecutive days per week have gone by calmly since the corona outbreak.”
He reported attacks in Ras-Alain, and the suburbs of Qamishli, Hassake and Malikya.
Of the 20,000 Christian families living in the region before the Syrian conflict began in 2011, an estimated 7,500 families remain.
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