Thousands of Armenian Christians have fled their ancestral homeland in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh over the weekend and more are expected, the government of Armenia confirmed on September 25. “The mass exodus has begun,” Siobhan Nash-Marshall, a U.S. – based human rights advocate who has been speaking to witnesses on the ground, told CNA.
Nash-Marshall founded the Christians in Need Foundation (CINF) in 2011 to help Armenian Christians in the region, and in 2020 she started a school for children and adults in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Now, Nash-Marshall has received word from her school in Nagorno-Karabakh that “all is over” and that “people from all regions, all villages, are home-less” and without shelter, food, and water.
Hundreds of ethnic Armenians are sleeping in the streets and cannot even drink water because they claim it has been “poisoned by Azeris,” according to Nash-Marshall’s contacts.
Both former soviet territories, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. With the backing of Turkey, Azerbaijan asserted its military dominance over Armenia in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended in November 2020.
Though Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, is inter-nationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, the region is almost entirely made up of ethnic Armenian Christians.
Until last week, Armenians in the region claimed self-sovereignty under the auspices of the “Republic of Artsakh.”
On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan launched a short but intense military offensive that included rocket and mortar fire. The offensive, labeled “antiterror measures” by the Azeri government, resulted in the deaths of more than 200 ethnic Armenians and over 10,000 dis-placed civilians, according to the Artsakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The president of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference admits mistakes in dealing with abuse cases in the Catholic Church and advocates for the abolition of celibacy and the admission of women to the priesthood.
In an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) am Sonntag External link, Bishop Felix Gmür also said that the Catholic Church has been active in the topic of abuse cases for a long time. The prevailing conditions must be questioned, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference president explains. In his view, the time is ripe to abolish celibacy and to allow women access to the priesthood.
In general, power in the Church must be better distributed, Gmür said. “I will lobby in Rome for the Church to decentralise.” A new sexual morality is needed, together with the possibility to make regulations regionally. Part of coming to terms with the situation is questioning the prevailing conditions. “Celibacy means that I am available to God. But I believe that this sign is no longer understood by society today,” says Gmür. “The time is ripe to abolish celibacy. I have no problem at all imagining married priests.”
The exclusion of women from priestly ordination should also fall, he says. “The subordination of women in the Catholic Church is incomprehensible to me. Changes are needed there,” Gmür said.

On September 15th, at least 11 Christians were massacred by terrorists loyal to ISIS in northern Mozambique.
According to Friar Boaventura, a missionary in the region, the killings took place in the village of Naquitengue, in the province of Cabo Delgado.
Since 2017, the area has been under regular attack from Islamic fundamentalists.
Friar Boaventura told Aid to the Church in Need that a local terrorist group that claims allegiance to ISIS arrived in Naquitengue in the early afternoon and summoned everyone in the village. They then separated the Christians from the Muslims, based on names and ethnicity.
And then, the missionary says, “[they] opened fire on the Christians.” The terrorists’ statement claimed that they had killed 11 people in the operation, but there may be more victims, and others are seriously wounded.
The attack occurred as “many people were returning to their communities,” so there is now a great feeling of insecurity.
“We must pray for our brothers, who are in so much pain,” the friar says. This call is echoed by Sister Aparecida Ramos Queiroz, who works for the Diocese of Pemba, and who told ACN that “only prayer can sustain us, because there is no end in sight for this conflict.”

On the heights of Marseille, in the south of France, the sea stretches as far as the eye can see. The memorial dedicated to sailors and migrants lost at sea is there, at the foot of Notre-Dame de la Garde. The memorial stone is surmounted by a large Camargue cross – combining the traditional cross and an anchor.
It was in this striking landscape that Pope Francis came to launch another powerful appeal on the first day of his trip to Marseille on September 22, in front of the sun-soaked Mediterranean Sea in which migrants still drown every day.
“Too many people, fleeing conflict, poverty and environmental disasters in their search for a better future, find in the waves of the Mediterranean Sea the ultimate rejection,” lamented Francis, whose white robe was blown by the Mistral wind. “
“We are at a crossroads,” he said, “On the one hand, there is fraternity (…) on the other, indifference, which bloodies the Mediterranean.” He emphasized, “It’s either the culture of humanity and fraternity, or the culture of indifference – every man for himself.” And so this beautiful sea has become a huge cemetery.”
In the midst of religious leaders from Marseille of all religions and denominations, the Pope forcefully denounced both the “cruel trafficking” and the “fanaticism of indifference” towards those trying to reach Europe. “People who are at risk of drowning when abandoned on the waves must be rescued,” he thundered after a moment of silent reflection, visibly moved.
In this speech, the Pope echoed the feelings expressed at the very beginning of his pontificate. It was as if he wanted to renew the call made in Lampedusa in the summer of 2013. On the small island of Sicily, the newly elected Pope had criticized the world’s indifference to migrants. But this appeal, renewed twice in another Greek refugee camp on Lesbos in 2016 and 2021, has never really been heard.