ACI-Africa will be headed by Father Don Bosco Onyalla, a priest of the Diocese of Rumbek in South Sudan.
Onyalla is a journalist who established and previously oversaw the Catholic News Agency For Africa (CANAA), a project of the African bishops conference. Onyalla's work has included producing websites, newsletters and social media updates for the bishops, as well as working with diocesan, national and regional episcopal communication directors throughout Africa. He speaks English, French, and Swahili, as well as the local languages of Luhya and Dinka.
"I look forward to interacting with fellow Catholic journalists under the EWTN umbrella, to facilitating the telling of Africa's story by Africans, and to the challenges involved in setting up a news agency in the vast and multi-cultural context that is Africa," Onyalla said.
ACI-Africa will be a part of the ACI Group which was acquired by EWTN in 2014 and includes ACI Prensa, the world's largest Spanish-language Catholic news organization with headquarters in Lima, Peru; ACI Digital, the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-based news organization, which serves the Portuguese-speaking world; and ACI Stampa, the Italian-language news organization based in Rome. ACI Group is part of the larger EWTN News, Inc. division, which also includes Denver-based Catholic News Agency (CNA), the German language news service, CNA Deutsch, and several other Catholic news outlets.
"We were honored to welcome Vatican officials, journalists, and distinguished guests to our event announcing the birth of ACI-Africa," said Alejandro Bermudez, Executive Director of the ACI Group.
"This new agency aimed at covering all Africa for Africa and the world is an expression of the growing role African Catholicism is having in the universal Church. This is a significant step forward for the ACI Group as well as for the larger EWTN News family."