Prayer for Tigray Region, Ethiopia

God, we pray for the suffering
of the Tigray region,
from ethnic cleansing that calls
some of your children –
despised and rejected,
stricken, afflicted, bruised,
by a perversion of justice
cut off from the land of the living.

We pray for those grieving
murder in the streets,
and prevention of burying their dead.
We pray for those raped
whose lives are forever changed,
and for villages destroyed,
homes looted, atrocities beyond
the limits of ongoing warfare.

We pray for those who flee massacre
to refugee camps in the Sudan.

We pray for intervention
with the strength of the United Nations,
for support of the ongoing witness
by Amnesty International
of the human rights abuses,
the departure of
Amharans and Eritrians
and, as people die from starvation
for the opening of blocked access
for humanitarian aid.

We pray through all the holy names
of God,
who does not quench
a dimly burning wick. amen

(with allusions to Isaiah’s suffering servant songs)