Image of Father Lohre by Aid to the Church in Need
CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic aid organization warned that the kidnapping last year of a German missionary priest who was freed last week is not an isolated event, but rather shows a steady increase of jihadist activity in Africa in recent years.
In a press release, the Germany-based Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) commented about the recent release of a German priest kidnapped in Mali over a year ago.
According to ACN,
Fr. Ha-Jo was aware of the risks to his safety by continuing to work in Mali, but persisted, driven by a desire to improve the situation for the country overall, and to remain with his small Christian community…
Hans-Joachim Lohre, known affectionately as Fr. Ha-Jo, disappeared in Bamako, Mali, on 20 November 2022. He had over 30 years of experience in Mali. His car was found abandoned, and the cross he normally carried with him was on the floor.
ACN noted that jihadist activity has increased in Africa over the past few years. In 2022 before his kidnapping, Lohre explained to ACN, “The jihadists come in groups, on motorcycles, and the local communities have to make deals with them. They are forbidden from ringing church bells and drinking alcohol, and women are forced to wear the veil.”
Lohre, 66, had told ACN before his kidnapping, “As white Europeans, we are easy targets, and we have been told that the jihadists are watching us.”
In explaining why he chose to stay in Mali, Lohre said, “The question is given to us in the Gospel, ‘who do you say I am?’, that is the meaning of our lives, and we see that what is important is not how long we live, or how little or how much we achieve, but whether what we do has meaning and can make the world a better place.”
The German government directly negotiated Lohre’s release with his al-Qaeda-linked extremist captors, according to Vatican News.
His congregation, the Missionaries of Africa, confirmed Lohre’s release on November 29 of 2023, stating that they “are overjoyed to know that he is finally free after so many months:”
Fr Ha-Jo went directly to his native country, Germany, to be reunited with his family and receive the necessary care. Following all these months in captivity, his health must have been affected… We hope that he recovers quickly, and that the trauma he suffered does not leave too many after-effects.
“We are greatly relieved, and very happy, to hear that Fr. Ha-Jo has been released after what must have been a grueling ordeal,” said Executive President of ACN International Regina Lynch.
She explained that Lohre worked closely with ACN for several years and that “ACN has seen first-hand how he always had the best interests of the people of Mali at heart, regardless of their religion. In fact, he was deeply committed to interreligious dialogue in the majority-Muslim country, which he saw as a key to peace and development.”
“Despite our joy at the moment, however, we must also remember that there are many other men and women who remain in custody or are persecuted for their beliefs around the world, but particularly in Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, and our prayers and thoughts are with them at this time as well,” Lynch continued, adding that ACN continues
to accompany, with great anguish, the situation of Christians in particular in the Sahel region, where every day Christians are expelled from their villages, starve to death under the pressure of (Islamic) terrorist groups or simply slaughtered because they still want to wear a cross or pray.
Just in Burkina Faso and in Niger, according to the local bishops, over 100 causes of beatification are underway because of this new wave of Islamist persecution, which goes largely unreported in the Western world.
