Relations between Christians and the government in Mozambique have improved in the country since the independence struggle, when the church was often seen or portrayed as reactionary.

The Rev Joaquina Filipe Nhanala was elected on 23 July as the first female United Methodist bishop in Africa. From 1 September, she succeeds Bishop João Somane Machado, retired leader of the Mozambique area.

After Mozambique's war of independence with Portugal, it entered a gruelling twenty-year period of civil war. The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) party officially laid aside its Marxist ideology in 1989, and multi-party elections were held the following year. Support the vital work of ActionAid today, and sponsor a child in Mozambique here

Christian leaders in Burundi have called on a church-sponsored group led by former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano to reach out to the rebel Palipehutu-Forces for National Liberation, the last remaining insurgent group.

Extreme rainfall in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe has caused severe flooding with devastating consequences - including food shortages to come as farmers’ crops are washed away, warn international church and development bodies.

In 1992, 16 years of civil war came to an end in Mozambique during which time more than one million people were killed, 1.7 million fled to neighbouring countries and over 4 million were internally displaced.To find out more about child sponsorship, and sponsor a child in Mozambique, visit the World Vision sponsor a child website

Anti-AIDS activists, including those working with church-backed groups, have expressed amazement at outrage about claims made by the head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique that some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Flooding in Mozambique has forced tens of thousands from their homes along the Zambezi river valley, following weeks of heavy rain, report development agencies and church networks.

Mozambique is "owed an ecological debt by those who constructed and have made profits from the dams of the Zambezi River, that is to say, the Portuguese government and the South African company Eskom," Malawian economist Francis Ng'ambi told participants at a World Council of Churches (WCC) workshop on ecological debt at World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, which ended yesterday.