MANILA (UCAN): Catholic humanitarian agencies from around the world have vowed support for Philippine relief and rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Mangkhut (Ompong) in the country’s northern provinces.
 
Caritas Internationalis launched an appeal to help finance relief operations for thousands of families affected by the super typhoon.
 
“After the storm has passed people will need help to restore their livelihoods,” it said in a statement.
 

Manila (UCAN): “The ambush of soldiers while delivering relief goods is deplorable,” Father Edwin Gariguez, the executive secretary of Caritas-Philippines, said.
 
Fifty gunmen from the New People’s Army shot at troops from Philippine Army’s 20th Infantry Battalion who were assisting families in the town of Catubig, Northern Samar province in the central Philippines, which was battered by the tropical storm, Kai-tak, a week before Christmas.
 

BERLIN (SE): The Global Catholic Climate Movement announced on October 3 that a coalition of 40 Catholic institutions has decided to pull out its collective investments in fossil fuel-related industries estimated to be worth over $US5 trillion ($38.75 trillion) and place it in more environmentally friendly activities.
 

ROME (SE): Children account for one half of all refugees in the world today, an appeal from Caritas calling for proper protection to be accorded to them says.

KAMPALA (SE): The African nation of Uganda has seen more refugees coming across its borders in the last four months than arrived in the European nation of Greece during the first 10 months of this year.

Its once sparsely populated northern grassland of Bidi Bidi has in a short space of time been transformed into what Caritas Uganda describes of the second largest refugee shelter in the world.