With an appeal for the release of more than 300 students and teachers kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Nigeria, the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has today presented a new element of its initiative “Solidarity with persecuted and oppressed Christians in our time”. Referring to the increasing acts of violence in Nigeria, Mgr Bertram Meier, Bishop of Augsburg and President of the DBK’s Commission for the Universal Church, spoke of “abominable crimes that must be condemned with the utmost firmness and for which there can be no excuse”. The “spiral of violence” in the country, he said, has clearly “accelerated dramatically”, and Nigeria has been going through “religiously turbulent times” for some time. Mgr Meier, who visited the African country last January, spoke at an online press conference to present a new guide that examines the situation of Christians in Nigeria and is part of an initiative in favour of persecuted Christians. In the north of the country, Meier said, Islamist terrorists are still active, even though the Boko Haram organisation has been pushed back. In other parts of Nigeria, ethnic, political and social conflicts are intertwined with issues of religious identity. The bishop called for greater commitment from the Nigerian government: “If we do not want this most populous and unstable country to slip into a serious crisis, it is crucial to take ongoing, decisive action based on the rule of law and respect for all religions”. The prelate lamented the international community’s excessive inaction in recent years in solving these problems, and called on the German government to do more to stabilise Nigeria. Fr Dirk Bingener, President of the humanitarian organisation Missio Aachen and the Pontifical Mission Societies in Germany, presented several church projects in Nigeria aimed at preventing violence in critical regions of the country. Particular attention is paid to the involvement of women. Fr Bingener said: “All these projects show that we must eliminate the root causes of violence and persecution against Christians in Nigeria. Our partners on the ground are best placed to assess how this goal can be achieved in practice. But they need our support”.