Faith protesters against ‘big, beautiful Bill’ arrested

A GROUP of Christians were, for the third time since April, arrested in the United States Capitol rotunda on Monday while praying during a faith-led “Moral Monday” protest against the Republican-led federal budget Bill (News, 30 May), the Episcopal News Service reports. A Capitol police spokesperson said that the nine people arrested had been charged with “crowding, obstructing, and incommoding”. Among them was Suvya Carroll, a disability-rights advocate who was born with cerebral palsy. Potential cuts to health-care programmes under the Bill would imperil her future, she said. She prayed that God “would not let this happen”.

Nigerians killed in militant attacks, RC diocese reports

DOZENS of people were killed last week in violence at Christian settlements in central Nigeria, the Roman Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need reports. It received information from the Makurdi diocese that 36 people had been murdered, nine injured, and two abducted between 24 and 26 May, in raids reportedly carried out by militant members of the Fulani herder community. The first occurred in Tse Orbiam, Gwer West, where a memorial service for two priests killed in 2018 was being held. The diocese reported that 20 people were killed on 25 May in an attack on Aondona, Gwer West. On 26 May, militants returned to Tse Orbiam in the early hours, killing five people. Later that day, six were killed in Ahume, Gwer West. In the last assault, on Naka-Adoka Road, Gwer West, “Fulani-Jihadists carried out a coordinated attack targeting both residents and travellers along the road, opening fire indiscriminately,” the diocese reported.