Irish president linked church massacre to climate change

MICHAEL D HIGGINS, the president of Ireland, has come under fire for linking a church massacre in Nigeria with climate change.

Forty people were killed during a church service on June 5, with a further 87 injured, in an attack that local authorities believe was carried out by Islamic State West Africa Province.

“That such an attack was made in a place of worship is a source of particular condemnation, as is any attempt to scapegoat pastoral peoples who are among the foremost victims of [climate] change,” Mr Higgins said in a statement condemning the attack.

“The neglect of food security issues in Africa for so long has brought us to a point of crisis that is now having internal and regional effects based on struggles, ways of life themselves,” the 81-year-old added.

The comments quickly drew an angry reaction from the Nigerian Catholic bishop who lost 40 of his congregation when they were shot dead by assailants armed with AK47S and explosives during Pentecost Sunday mass.

“To suggest or make a connection between victims of terror and consequences of climate change is not only misleading but also exactly rubbing salt to the injuries of all who have suffered terrorism in Nigeria,” Bishop Arogundade of the Ondo diocese said in a statement, blasting the comments as “incorrect and far-fetched”.

There has been a rise in violence in recent years between Fulani herdsmen grazing their cattle and farmers from other ethnic groups trying to protect their land. Mr Higgins later denied that he had linked climate change to the deadly church shootings.

In a statement, the president’s office said that he had “utterly and unequivocally condemned the attack on St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria, and expressed his particular horror that such an attack could happen in a place of worship”.

“The president’s comments with regard to climate change related to the plight of pastoral peoples in the region and the president made no link in his statement between climate change and the attack itself,” it added.

Independent senator Ronan Mullen on Thursday told the Seanad, Ireland’s upper parliament, that the president’s office must be better at owning up its mistakes rather than “doubling down” on comments that are being misperceived.