25th April 2026

The US military continues to carry out summary killings in the eastern Pacific. The US military said it killed two people in a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking vessel, yesterday. US Southern Command said: "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations." However, the US has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking.  International legal experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings as they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States. In addition no judicial process is conducted, meaning that the accused have no opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. 

Civil rights groups are seeking to challenge the legality of the deadly attacks.  UN officials have described the US campaign as a flagrant violation of human rights. “We are doing everything in our power to hold the Trump administration responsible for its egregious violations of both US and international law, and that includes asking the widely respected Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate these heinous killings,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, said in a statement last month. The number killed by the US in this way is now 18 2according to AFP. 

Loving God, we bring you to our concerns for what is happening upon the high seas in the eastern Pacific. We ask your loving care for all families and friends of the 182 people who have been killed by the US administration, all unable to defend themselves in a court of law.  We lament that the US has such inhumanity and disregard for human rights and justice. Forgive those who order such killings, and those who carry them out.  Turn their hearts to use the law rather than the gun.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.

​Saffie, 6, from Hertfordshire in the UK, suffered with a rare inherited condition called Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA). The disorder prevents the cells in her eyes from making a specific protein needed for normal vision. The condition can result in children with the condition having low vision in daylight, and little to no vision in the dark. They can lose sight completely when they are older. Saffie was diagnosed when she was five, after her parents noticed she was struggling to see in the dark. Saffie’s mother, said: “Saffie’s diagnosis came as a huge shock to us as we’d never heard of the condition or knew that me and her dad were carriers." She added, "We were told that without the treatment, she would be blind by the age of 30."  Saffie underwent the eye gene therapy - called Luxturna - at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The first eye was treated in April 2025 and in her second eye in September. The one-off therapy, which is the first of its kind for one of the genetic causes of LCA, contains a healthy copy of the gene which is injected directly into the eye. The treatment has been life-changing. "It’s like someone waved a magic wand and restored her sight in the dark", said Saffie's mother.  The medical team working with Saffie followed 15 children who were treated with the gene therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital, between 2020 and 2023 and showed it can improve visual pathway function in young children with RPE65-related retinal disease. Rob Henderson, consultant ophthalmologist at Gosh, said: “For the first time, we’ve been able to show objectively that gene therapy can strengthen the visual pathways in babies and young children who are living with this rare eye condition."

Psalm 8 (ESV)

O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength because of your foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honour.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,

all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

 whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!