Frederick Nzwili

Nigeria’s return to the U.S. list of countries of “particular concern” over Christian persecution has drawn mixed reactions from church leaders and triggered a heated debate in Africa’s most populous nation.

A young seminarian has become the latest victim of killings in Nigeria, the West African country where attack and kidnapping of Catholic clergy is on the rise.

A “silent genocide” — mimicking the Rwandan one of 1994 — is occurring eastern Congo, said some Catholic Church sources, as shock greeted the killing of 70 people in a Protestant church in the North Kivu Province.

As an uneasy calm returned to the Congolese city of Goma, following a unilateral ceasefire declared by the rebels, people began burying the dead, and agencies rushed aid to thousands of displaced civilians, now camping in churches and schools.

Amid tragic escalation of violence in Congo, Bishop Willy Ngumbi Ngengele of Goma has assured the people of the church’s closeness and compassion, as rebels entered the eastern city of Goma, forcing thousands to flee and triggering wave of looting and deaths.