Please forward this prayer bulletin widely, and encourage others to sign up to the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin blog. "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16 NIV)
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR): MASSACRE IN ALINDAO
-- Elizabeth Kendal
![]() |
Bishop Blaise Mada (l) and Rev Celestin Ngoumbango (r) ( image: African Daily Voice ) |
![]() |
Devastation in Alindao |
![]() |
click on map to enlarge |
In December 2017 Russia secured an exemption to the Security Council arms embargo, allowing Moscow to deliver arms to the CAR military and train its soldiers to fight the jihadists, many of whom are foreigners, mostly from Chad and Sudan. Russia is also spearheading mediation efforts; it is assistance for which the Church in CAR is deeply grateful. Unfortunately, Russian assistance to the CAR government has triggered an arms race as Islamist factions also up-the-ante. Like most Islamic jihadists, the jihadists controlling much of CAR are merely proxies of external powers: transnational criminals, war profiteers, Islamist networks and foreign governments whose interests and 'secret agendas' necessitate the destabilisation of states. As His Excellency, Mgr Juan Jose Aguirre Munos, Bishop of Bangassou, rightly notes, 'foreign forces want to make Central Africans fight each other in order to get their hands on the wealth of the country and open the road to radical Islam in the heart of Africa'.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR GOD TO
* sever the Islamic jihadists' lines of supply so they might be starved of funds and deprived of weapons and foreign fighters; may the plots of those who seek CAR's ruin be thwarted. 'Break the arm [strength, mechanism of action] of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.' (from Psalm 10)
* intervene for the benefit of CAR, and especially for CAR's suffering Church; may all suffering be redeemed; may the devil have no victory here.
* protect and comfort CAR's suffering Church; abandoned by the world, may she be lifted up and encouraged by the prayers of the Body of Christ. May the Lord supply her every need and deliver her from evil.
SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
--------------------------------------------------------
MASSACRE IN ALINDAO, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR)
On 15 November Islamic militants rampaged through the south-central town of Alindao. They looted and torched the Catholic Cathedral and killed the bishop in his residence. They then attacked the Catholic mission camp -- home to some 20,000 displaced persons -- burning it to the ground. The body of a local priest was found amongst the dead. To date, 48 are confirmed dead. Two weeks earlier, violence by Islamic militants in the north-western town of Batangafo left 20 wounded, while thousands of homes, a market, a chapel and three refugee camps housing 27,000 people were looted and burned. Foreign forces are working to destabilise CAR so they might steal its resources and 'open the road to radical Islam in the heart of Africa'. Please pray for CAR and its suffering Church.
-------------------------------
Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).
See www.ElizabethKendal.com