WASHINGTON: A mother, desperate to escape Somalia's famine, alternated carrying each of her two children until they all became so weak that she could only carry one.

She looked down at her two children and said a prayer – then she made the excruciating decision to leave one of them behind so she could save the other.

More than 3,500 guests from 100 nations, including Barack Obama and two other presidents, had tears in their eyes as USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah told this story at Thursday's national prayers breakfast in Washington.

“Were they somehow lesser than our sons and daughters? Did their fathers love them less? Did their mothers? Did God?” Mr Shah asked. Nobody had an answer.

Mr Shah met the woman when he visited a Somali refugee camp two years ago.

While nobody disagreed with Mr Shah's message, President Obama risked annoying other nations, particularly China, while insisting that ensuring freedom of religion across the world was America's diplomatic priority and a matter of national security.

He also had a message for Pakistan: protect the rights of the Ahmadiyya community.

“No society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its peoples, including religious minorities, whether they're Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan, or Baha'i in Iran, or Coptic Christians in Egypt,” he said.

“And in Syria, it means ensuring a place for all people – Alawites and Sunni, Shia and Christian.”

Speaking at the prayer breakfast, Mr Obama acknowledged that raising the issue of religious freedom was “not always comfortable,” particularly when dealing with nations that were strategically and economically important to the United States, such as China, “but it is right”.

To make his point, Mr Obama quoted from the Holy Quran, the Bible and the Torah.

The Muslim holy book, he noted, instructs people to “stand out firmly for justice”, the Bible says: “Do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed” and the Torah commands: “Know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”

“So history shows that nations that uphold the rights of their people – including the freedom of religion – are ultimately more just and more peaceful and more successful,” said Mr Obama.

“Nations that do not uphold these rights sow the bitter seeds of instability and violence and extremism. So freedom of religion matters to our national security.”

The prayer breakfast is an annual Washington event, held on the first Thursday of the second month. Every American president since Dwight Eisenhower has joined the gathering.

Some 3,500 guests, including international invitees from over 100 countries, attend the breakfast. The late Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was a regular guest at this gathering.

Although Congress hosts the event, the US president is always the chief guest.

Every year, the meeting has a different theme. This year, it was bipartisanship at home and ending extreme poverty abroad.