In contrast to Australia’s success with hepatitis C, our response to hepatitis B is lagging

While hepatitis B can’t be cured in the same way hepatitis C can, effective treatment is available.
From shutterstock.com

Benjamin Cowie, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity; Karen McCulloch, University of Melbourne, and Nicole Romero, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Around one-third of Australians living with hepatitis C have been cured in the last four years.

Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C is one of five varieties of viral hepatitis (A-E), and alongside hepatitis B, is responsible for the majority of illness caused by hepatitis.

Australia’s response to hepatitis C is seen as a leading example around the world, and the elimination of the disease as a major public health threat is looking like an increasingly achievable goal.

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Read more:
Australia leads the world in hepatitis C treatment – what’s behind its success?

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But the situation is much less promising for Australians living with hepatitis B, which is now the most common blood-borne viral infection in Australia. It affects more people than hepatitis C and HIV combined.

In our research published today, we show Australia is falling short of its targets to reduce the burden of hepatitis B. Looking to the way we’ve responded to hepatitis C may set us on a better path.

Hepatitis C treatment

There were an estimated 182,144 people living with chronic hepatitis C in Australia at the end of 2017.

A number of important drugs were listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) from 2016, making curative treatments available to nearly all Australians living with hepatitis C.

The number of treatments being initiated has fallen significantly since the early peak, and significant differences exist in who has accessed the treatments across Australia. Nonetheless, Australia’s response to hepatitis C is highly regarded as an example of how to rapidly scale up hepatitis C treatment in a population, including among people who inject drugs.

Recent data from New South Wales demonstrate access to hepatitis C cures has led to a drop in the number of people with hepatitis C dying from liver cancer, with the bend in the curve coinciding with listing of these new treatments on the PBS in 2016.

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Read more:
Explainer: the A, B, C, D and E of hepatitis

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Hepatitis B treatment

There were an estimated 221,420 people living with chronic hepatitis B in Australia in 2017. Along the trajectory of the disease, those who have liver disease or are at risk of developing liver disease require treatment.

Unlike hepatitis C, hepatitis B cannot be cured with current treatments, so ongoing antiviral therapy is required. This is similar to the treatment received by someone with HIV.

Although not a cure, the available treatments are effective. Current hepatitis B treatments have been associated with reducing the risk of liver cancer by around 50% in the first five years of treatment.

Scaling up such treatment and care will be a critical element in reversing the increasing tide of liver cancer deaths in Australia.

Hepatitis can cause mild to severe liver damage.
From shutterstock.com

Targets

By 2030, the World Health Organisation has set out that 90% of people with hepatitis B should be diagnosed, 80% of those who meet criteria for treatment should be treated, and deaths due to hepatitis B should be reduced by 65% relative to 2015 globally.

In Australia, our Third National Hepatitis B Strategy sets targets to be achieved by 2022, including diagnosing 80% of people, engaging 50% of people in care, treating 20% of people, and reducing deaths due to hepatitis B by 30%.

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Three charts on: cancer rates in Australia, where liver cancer is on the rise while other types fall

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Measuring progress towards these targets is complicated and requires consideration of a range of demographic and other factors. Considering most people living with hepatitis B in Australia were born overseas or are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples, up-to-date estimates of Indigenous status and migration flows into and out of Australia are essential. Estimates of the prevalence of hepatitis B in different groups and detailed information about the natural history of hepatitis B in individuals over time is also important.

Our research

Taking these complexities into account, we’ve constructed a mathematical model simulating the burden of hepatitis B in the Australian population from 1951 to 2030. We wanted to see how Australia is faring in terms of meeting national and international targets.

By 2022, if current trends continue, the proportion of people diagnosed will reach 71% (short of the 80% goal). Some 11.2% of Australians living with hepatitis B will be on treatment (short of the 20% target). But we estimate the proportion who actually need treatment is around 30%, so we have a long way to go.

In related work mapping the burden of hepatitis B and estimating differences in treatment and care nationally we estimate only 20% of people living with hepatitis B are engaged in care (either being appropriately monitored or receiving treatment). Again, this is well short of the 50% target.

So why aren’t we meeting these targets?

Broader inequities in health access and outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse groups and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples play a substantial role. Together they represent over two-thirds of Australians living with hepatitis B.

Current delivery of treatment and care differs across the country. The experience and strategies used in those areas with higher levels of treatment and care should be examined and shared to address the inequities observed across Australia.

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Read more:
Eliminating hepatitis C – an ambitious but achievable goal

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Like hepatitis C, Australia’s response to the needs of people living with HIV is viewed as being of a high standard. Two elements central to our responses to hepatitis C and HIV are currently missing for hepatitis B.

The first is strong, ongoing community engagement and leadership of the response by those affected. While organisations representing people living with HIV have existed since the 1980s and for hepatitis C since the 1990s, engagement with people living with hepatitis B has lagged well behind.

The second is treatment and care primarily being delivered in the community by primary care clinicians (especially GPs) – rather than in hospitals and by specialists, as is the case for most people living with hepatitis B. Many patients prefer seeing GPs and find this more convenient than waiting for hospital appointments and seeing specialists. This can be especially true for people living far from major hospitals, reflected in the fact hepatitis B treatment uptake is much lower than average in regional and rural areas of Australia.

Making it happen

Although both factors are priorities for action in the National Hepatitis B Strategy, progress will require ongoing funding and coordinated efforts by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, primary health networks, and other partners.

The impact will be measured, not just in modelled estimates, but in real lives saved. While we’re not yet on track to meet our targets for hepatitis B in Australia, our modelling suggests even with the relatively low current uptake of treatment and care, 2,300 Australian lives were saved between 2000 and 2017, which otherwise would have been lost to liver cancer and liver failure caused by hepatitis B.

If we can translate what has been learned in our HIV and hepatitis C responses to increase access to essential care for Australians living with hepatitis B, thousands more lives can be saved in the next decade and beyond.

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Read more:
Dr G. Yunupingu’s legacy: it’s time to get rid of chronic hepatitis B in Indigenous Australia

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Benjamin Cowie, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity; Karen McCulloch, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, and Nicole Romero, Epidemiologist, WHO Collaboating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia: Drone Attacks and Pine Gap

The link below is to an article that takes a look at the drone warfare success story in the war on terror and the Australian part of the story – Pine Gap.

For more visit:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/drone-strike-success-credited-to-australian-base/

Capitalism: Success or Failure?

Mali: Latest Conflict News

The link below is to an article reporting on the latest conflict news out of Mali, with reports that Chadian troops have had success in their battle with Malian Islamists.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/03/al-qaida-deaths-niger-hostages

Church ministry in Syria treads carefully after shut down

The spiritual climate in Syria is a changing one. While Syria’s Christian minority is generally respected, conversions to Christianity from Islam are rare and sometimes met with opposition, reports MNN.

Voice of the Martyrs reports that evangelizing is legal, but visas are not granted for missionary work. And while there is freedom to worship, any activity that could threaten communal harmony is suspect, making it difficult to spread the Gospel.

Despite the challenges, Reach Global in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began in 2008. The team working in the area is focused on holistic ministry: meeting physical and emotional needs as well as the spiritual needs of an individual.

They have been working together with churches, national partners, and collaborating with like-minded ministry organizations in order to reach the Syrians with the hope of Christ, and there has been success. A church has been planted.

This June however, the Syrian government closed the doors of that evangelical church. The group is still hoping to meet for worship and Bible study, but they are praying for wisdom and discernment on how to do that and still remain within the law.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

Pakistani Muslims Accused of Rape Allegedly Attack Sisters

Fearing conviction, five suspects said to beat 15- and 21-year-old into dropping charges.

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 18 (CDN) — Five Muslims allegedly ransacked the house of an impoverished Christian in this capital city of Punjab Province last month and angrily beat his daughters in an effort to get the family to withdraw rape charges.

Muhammad Sajjid wielding a pistol, Muhammad Sharif brandishing a dagger and Muhammad Wajjad and two unidentified accomplices carrying bamboo clubs arrived at the Lahore home of Piyara Masih the afternoon of Feb. 26, Christian leaders said. The Muslims allegedly ransacked the house and began thrashing his two daughters, a 15-year-old and her 21-year-old sister, Muniran Bibi, according to attorney Azra Shujaat, head of Global Evangelical Ministries, and Khalid Gill, president of the Christian Liberation Front (CLF).

Muniran said Sharif stabbed her four times with the dagger.

“They ripped apart my clothes, as well as my sister’s,” she said. “In the meantime, Muhammad Sajjid kept firing into the air to terrorize us.”  

The family accuses the men of raping her then-13-year-old sister in 2008. Their frail father said that the gang leader, Sajjid, commanded his accomplices to abduct both Muniran and her sister in the most recent attack, without success. A neighbor who requested anonymity said that a large number of people gathered in front of the house upon hearing the cries of the Christian family, causing the five Muslims to flee.

The alleged attacks on the family were predicated in part on the assumption that, as Christians, they will get little help from a justice system biased against non-Muslims and easily swayed by threats, bribes or other means of persuasion from Muslims, Christian leaders said. When the family approached Nishtar Colony police for help, officers refused to register a case.

Attorney Shujaat said that in refusing to file assault charges, police bowed to the power of wealthy area Muslims. Shujaat, who is providing pro-bono counsel for the family, said he registered a First Information Report (FIR) at the Lahore High Court, accusing the men of ransacking the house and illegal weapons. Only after the high court order for police to file an FIR and strenuous efforts by him, Christian politicians and clergymen did the Nishtar Colony police register one against the Muslim gang.

Police did not register the FIR until March 2, he said, on orders of Additional Sessions Judge Justice Mahr Muhammad Yousaf.

The Christian family said they were still receiving death threats.

Gill, who besides being president of CLF is head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, said the alleged rape took place on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007, when Sajjid, Sharif, Wajjad and an unknown accomplice attacked the family.

“The chastity of [name withheld], who was 13 years old then and youngest among her sisters, was ruined by all four Muslim gang members, and later they abducted her and kept her at an undisclosed locality,” Gill said.

Police later recovered her, and a medical examination proved that she had been repeatedly sexually abused, Gill added.

Shujaat said the four men were being prosecuted for rape and abduction of the girl in District and Sessions Court. Sources told Compass that the alleged rapists were granted bail and secured liberty soon after their apprehension.

Shujaat said evidence at their trial showed they were responsible for the rape, and that a conviction was imminent.

Ferhan Mazher, head of Christian rights group Rays of Development Organization, said the only way for the “perverse Muslim criminals” to do away with the court’s judgment was to convince the Christian family, through threats and violence, to drop the charges.

“Therefore the Muslim men invaded the house of the Christian family to exert intense pressure on them to quash the case,” Mazher said.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Arrested Evangelists Say Muslims Colluded with Police

Anglicans say Islamists tricked them by showing up for inter-faith debate with security agents.

NAIROBI, Kenya, February 2 (CDN) — Two Christian evangelists in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have been arrested after Muslims invited them to debate religion but instead called in security agents who charged the evangelists with illegal preaching.

Anglican evangelists Eleutery Kobelo and Cecil Simbaulanga, released on bail and facing a hearing on Feb. 11, told Compass that Christian and Muslim groups organized the inter-faith debate that was planned for a neutral venue in October of last year in the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam.

Kobelo said no Muslims showed up at the debate until Islamists arrived with government security agents who charged them with “using religious sermons to incite Muslims and Christians into viewing each other with suspicion.”

“This continuous intimidation by the Muslims using the police is worrying us,” he said.

Kobelo and Simbaulanga were in jail for seven days before they were released on bail on Oct. 27. At press time charges of unlawful assembly also had been brought against the two evangelists and seven other Christians, in addition to the original charges against the evangelists.

Also arrested and released last October were Christians Joseph Lima, Shadrack Mwasonya, Festo Mumba, Erastus Mwarabu, Joseph Mmari, John Chacha, and Daniel Mwakemwa.

Kobelo said he does not foresee a fair hearing on Feb. 11, but that he cannot afford a lawyer.

“Without legal representation, it’s a long shot for justice to be done in this matter,” he said. “It is very difficult for me to raise 500,000 Tanzanian shillings [US$365] at the moment.”

Kobelo said he was seriously concerned about the charge of illegal assembly, which he said contradicted their rights as citizens; Tanzania’s constitution allows for freedom of religion and assembly.

Several other cases against Christians remain before local courts in Tanzania, he said, some of which have dragged on since 2007. His case will be tried in a court in the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam.

“The message we are putting across is that we need prayer and advocacy for the sake of our lives,” Kobelo said.

Simbaulanga told Compass that Muslims have resorted to using state police to harass Christians because they have political power. Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is a Muslim.

“We have had tremendous success in our ministry to Muslims, with thousands of Muslims turning to Christ,” Simbaulanga said. “So Muslims are trying to stop the movement, but nobody can stop the gospel.”

Simbaulanga was imprisoned for 62 days between December 2006 and February 2007 in Kigoma, he said. Denied bail, he was accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christ and “abusing Islam” by saying Muhammad had married a young girl. Several cases are pending against him in different courts, he said, and Muslims are constantly searching for him.

“Since 1996 I have always been on the run, trying to save my life,” Simbaulanga said.

He added that a family member who preached mainly among Muslims died in prison in 2005 due to a heart attack as a direct result of police harassment.

“There is a huge team of very sincere and committed Christians reaching out to Muslims in Tanzania, and we need lots of prayer, fellowship and financial support,” he said.

An estimated 62 percent of Tanzania’s population is Christian and 35 percent is Muslim, mostly Sunni; other religious groups make up the other 3 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Police in the Tanzanian capital of Dodoma stopped two Christian evangelists from reading excerpts from the Quran in an outdoor event on March 18, 2009, according to the state department’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report.  Officers temporarily detained them and released them with a warning not to read the Quran during sermons to avoid antagonizing the Muslim community.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Police raid offices of assisted suicide organization in Melbourne

Police raided the Melbourne offices of the assisted-suicide advocacy organization Exit International last Thursday, seizing documents related to the alleged assisted suicide of Exit International member Frank Ward. In response to this and to the raid of another Exit International member’s home, Exit International has told its 4,000 members to be wary not to attract police activity, reports James Tillman, LifeSiteNews.com.

"We haven’t had any incidents like this for a long time," said Dr. Philip Nitschke, head of Exit International.

The raid highlights the dubious legal status of Exit International’s activities. Because assisting or even encouraging suicide is illegal in Australia, Exit International bills its workshops, books, suicide equipment, and all its activities as merely providing people with knowledge and equipment to allow them to do what they want, not as actually assisting them in the act of suicide. According to Nitschke, such was the extent of Exit International’s contact with Ward.

"[Police] were suggesting we were involved in his death but we were not," Nitschke told Television New Zealand. "We would never be actively involved in something like that, helping him end his life, which would be committing a crime."

According to Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, such protestations of innocence are dubious.

"I think that this raid is long-overdue," he told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). "Nitschke has been skirting the law for many years."

Frank Ward killed himself last June by inhaling helium, which causes asphyxia. This method of suicide is among those promoted by Dr. Nitschke. Schadenberg described to LSN how at a Right-to-Die Conference he saw Nitschke demonstrate "how a device that he claimed to have invented would regulate the flow of gas to ensure that … the act would result in their death."

"Nitschke was not concerned that he was aiding suicide by knowingly selling a device to ensure the success of a suicide."

A widespread dissemination of information on how to kill oneself, however, is precisely what Nitschke desires. In an interview

with National Review he said that someone needs to provide the knowledge of how to kill oneself "to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, [and] the troubled teen."

"If we are to remain consistent and we believe that the individual has the right to dispose of their life, we should not erect artificial barriers in the way of sub-groups who don’t meet our criteria," he said.

The second raid on Thursday was directly related to this desire of Nitschke. Police came to the home of an elderly Exit International member in Sydney to search for the euthanasia drug Nembutal and information concerning its acquisition. They left with a small quantity of the drug and the "Peaceful Pill Handbook," a book by Nitschke and a co-author on how to kill oneself that was banned by the Australian government.

Nembutal is used by veterinarians to euthanize animals, and is tightly controlled in most places around the world. Nitschke’s organization, however, has striven to make it available to as many people as possible.

"Last year Nitschke was encouraging people to order Nembutal by mail order from a source that he had discovered," Schadenberg said. "Once again, he wasn’t concerned that people with chronic depression would access this information to kill themselves." Members of Exit International also travel to Mexico to buy the drug, where it is easily obtained.

Nitschke explained that because of the raids Exit Internatonal had sent an alert to its 4,000 members “warning them about the fact that … people should be very careful if they’ve gone to great lengths to get these drugs so that they don’t find themselves subject of any form of police activity”

Schadenberg, however, thinks it high time that such activity began in earnest.

"It is simply about time that his offices were investigated, especially now that he has set up an office in Bellingham, Washington state, where he intends to launch his group into the United States,” he said.

“He intends to grow his group Exit International and he is doing this through his recent series of speaking engagements throughout the United States, Britain and Canada."

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Church services banned as believers pray for persecuted church

Christians in Iran are facing even more persecution. International Christian Concern has learned that the Iranian government forced the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran to shut down its Friday worship services. The incident took place October 30. Some fear this episode is the beginning of a new campaign of government suppression of public Christian worship gatherings, reports MNN.

According to reports by Farsi Christian News Network, Rev. Sourik, the bishop of the Assemblies of God churches in Iran, resolved to close the church on Fridays, the weekly Islamic day of prayer, after encountering acute pressure from the security network within the Ministry of Information.

Initially, Sourik resisted the government sanction. However, the Revolutionary Guard demanded that the church close Friday public services by October 31, and threatened to shut down all services and close the church permanently. Sourik ultimately submitted to the government’s ruling out of concern for the congregation. “The announcement of the termination of the Friday services was received with shock and utter surprise, and resulted in many openly weeping in the church service,” reported FCNN. The church leadership affirmed that its Sunday services will remain open.

The Assembly of God Church in Tehran is among the largest church buildings designated for public worship in Iran, a country where the majority of Christians observe their faith in underground house churches. Registered “above ground” churches in Iran have been allowed relative independence to worship freely while being closely monitored by the government. However, ICC sources fear that the closure of Friday services–a heightened trend of government coercion upon “above ground” churches–may commence.

The targeting of registered churches discloses a regression in Iran’s policy of toleration toward Christians who choose to worship publicly. “I believe the main reason they closed those service is to send a strong signal to all Christians inside and outside Iran that they will not tolerate Christianity in Iran. Its purpose is mostly to intimidate,” said one ICC source.

Historically, it has been the underground church, not the open public churches, that have faced the brunt of government-imposed oppression.

Iran issued no official statement explaining the reasons for its recent crackdown.

Aiden Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, says, “We oppose Iran’s resolution to prevent the Christians of the Assembly of God Church in Tehran from fellowshiping freely on Fridays, or any other day of the week. We urge Iran to respect the rights of Christians to practice their faith freely without government interference, or authoritarian rule.”

Clay adds, “History has shown us that external persecution actually causes the church to grow.”

Clay says that the services have had “great success in bringing in new believers, converting Muslims to Christ, and I think Iran views that as a threat.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

NEPAL: CHRISTIANS INCREASINGLY VULNERABLE IN SECULAR STATE

As law and order breaks down, Christians come under attack.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, July 30

(Compass Direct News) – Three years after a pro-democracy movement led to the proclamation of Nepal as a secular state, some Christians say they are in greater peril than ever.

They are now being targeted by militant Hindu organizations that blame the church for the abolition of Hinduism as the state religion and the end of monarchy. A little-known, shadowy organization that claimed to be building an army of suicide bombers has achieved notoriety with two brutal attacks on Catholics in two years.

Since May, when the Nepal Defense Army (NDA) – which claims to have links with militant Hindu organizations across the border in India – struck one of Kathmandu valley’s oldest and biggest churches, the group has threatened to drive all Christians from the country. And now a group claiming to be the parent organization of the NDA has warned that on Aug. 10 it will start a “Save the Hindu nation” movement.

Police say Ram Prasad Mainali, the elusive NDA chief, hired a local woman to plant a bomb at the Assumption Church on May 23 during mass. Two women and a schoolgirl were killed in the attack. The NDA also claimed responsibility for killing a Catholic priest, John Prakash Moyalan, in southern Nepal last year.

Though police have issued an alert for his arrest, Mainali continues to evade capture, and it is murmured that he has political connections. Undeterred by the hunt, he continues to threaten the Christian community.

Last month, the Rev. Pius Perumana, a senior Catholic priest, received a phone call.

“The caller said he was in charge of the NDA in Kathmandu valley,” said Perumana of Ishalaya Catholic Church, located in Godavari on the southern rim of the capital. “However, I recognized the voice. It was Ram Prasad Mainali himself.”

Godavari is an important Catholic hub that includes a Catholic pastoral center, a shelter for destitute, HIV-infected women and homeless children, a day care center and a small clinic.

Perumana said he has received at least five threatening calls from the Hindu supremist ordering him to close all Christian organizations and leave Nepal, he said. The NDA leader has also been calling Protestant pastors, demanding money. In districts outside Kathmandu, where security is weak, some pastors are said to have paid up out of fear.

Mainali’s success has spawned at least one copycat extortion attempt.

“At least one pastor in Kathmandu has received an extortion letter,” said Chirendra Satyal, spokesman of the Assumption Church. “The writer claimed to be the vice-president of a Hindu group, the National Defence Party (NDP), calling it the mother organization of which Mainali’s NDA was the military arm. The pastor was asked to pay 7.5 million Nepalese rupees [US$98,190].”

The letter warned that starting on Aug. 10, the underground organization will start a “Save the Hindu nation” movement.

No Christian Corpses

Until three years ago, Nepal used to be the only Hindu kingdom in the world where Christians faced discrimination by the state, ostracization by society and imprisonment if found guilty of preaching Christ.

Things officially changed in 2006 after a pro-democracy movement led to the ouster of the army-backed regime of Hindu King Gyanendra, and Parliament proclaimed the Himalayan kingdom a secular, federal state.

But three years later, nothing has changed in reality, said the Rev. Nayaran Sharma, bishop of the Protestant Believers’ Church.

“We bought a plot of land in a forest in Gorkha district in western Nepal so that we could have an official graveyard,” Sharma told Compass. “But when the locals heard of it, they made us return the land, saying they did not want corpses in their midst as they would attract evil.”

Even three years after Nepal became secular, Christians have to be buried clandestinely on private property with the danger of graves being dug up, he said.

“Churches have not yet been registered by the government, and so we don’t get state assistance like the Hindu temples and Muslim mosques do,” Sharma said. “Temples are provided free land, electricity and water; the madrassas – the Muslim schools – receive state funding, and the government subsidizes the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.”

Christians make up about 2.5 percent of Nepal’s 25 million population. Nearly 75 percent of the population in Nepal is Hindu.

Christians are said to be both angered and disheartened by the new, 601-member constituent assembly mandated to draft a new constitution by May 2010.

“There’s not one Christian among the 601, though the government had the power to nominate members from unrepresented communities,” Sharma said. “Though Christianity has been in Nepal for almost 350 years, Christians are still like orphans. There is no one to speak for us, and we are discriminated against beyond imagination.”

Soft Targets

Political instability and the subsequent lawlessness and impunity leave Christians vulnerable to violence, as Sanjay Ekka, a Catholic priest from India’s impoverished Jharkhand state, learned on Monday (July 27).

Ekka came to Nepal in 2000 to teach at St. Xavier’s School, a Jesuit-run school in eastern Jhapa district. Five years ago, he was brought to the capital city of Kathmandu to run the Loyola Students’ Home, a hostel for boys from the Tamang community of Nepal, who, like Ekka’s own tribe, the Oraons, are among the poorest, least educated and most oppressed groups in Nepal.

Despite the similarities of the two tribes, the 40-year-old Ekka was subjected to a savage attack on Monday (July 27) by an expelled student that left his left arm severely slashed and deep gashes on his hip.

“It’s another sign of the growing lawlessness in the country,” says the Rev. Lawrence Maniyar, former principal of St. Xavier’s School in Kathmandu valley, which was founded in 1951. “With crimes soaring, Christians are being targeted as they are seen as soft targets.”

Another factor endangering Christians in Nepal is the tension in the nascent republic’s relations with its southern neighbor and largest trading partner, India. As the smaller neighbour, Nepal has lived in fear of being annexed since 1975, when the kingdom of Sikkim decided to abrogate monarchy and become part of India after a controversial referendum.

Tensions worsened in 1989, when India imposed a virtual blockade of Nepal, hitting the fragile economy of the land-locked kingdom. A substantial number of Christian priests in Nepal are from India.

“The heads of three Catholic organizations have been asked to leave Nepal,” said Bishop Anthony Sharma. They are the Rev. Boniface Tigga, principal of St. Xavier’s School in Kathmandu valley, the principal of St. Mary’s Higher Secondary School, identified only as Sister Nancy, and Sister Teresa Mandassery, who heads the Navjyoti Day Care Center for the mentally challenged in Kathmandu. All three are from India.

“Now the animosity is out in the open,” said Maniyar of St Xavier’s in Kathmandu valley. “There has been growing union trouble in St. Xavier’s School. While we were holding talks with the union representatives, they told us to our face, ‘You priests from Kerala [in southern India] think you can run the school the way you want.”

Maniyar said it is useless trying to explain reality to such people.

“We are in Nepal not because we are Indians,” he says. “We are here because we are Jesuits. It is an international organization with an administrative structure of its own, and we have to follow our superiors and go where ever they want us to.”

Report from Compass Direct News