Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - “I know that area of the Kenyan-Somalian border quite well and I knew the two nuns who were kidnapped from the mission in El-Wak,” Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti, Apostolic Administrator of Mogadishu, told Agenzia Fides. “About 8 years ago, before being transferred to Djibouti, I used to work in that part of Kenya. I even agreed to go to the mission in El-Wak to give them spiritual exercises, but in the end it was not possible, because I was transferred here to Djibouti.”
On November 10, Sr. Caterina “Rinuccia” Giraudo and Sr. Maria Teresa Olivero, of the Contemplative Missionary Movement of Charles de Foucauld, of Cuneo (Italy), were taken by force from their mission in El-Wak, a town in northeastern Kenya, which is located at about 10 km from the Somali border. It is a flat, desert-like area, where the border is practically ignored by everyone because there are no control stations and because the local people are Somali, Bishop Bertin commented.
There is still no word as to the identity of the kidnappers. The Bishop of Djibouti says that he is “inclined to the hypothesis that it is simply an act carried out by vandals. In fact, there are vandals in the area that perform raids on the livestock. I think that just as there are Somali pirates along the coasts, there are vandals who decide to kidnap Westerners for ransom money. I remember just last week, 4 European humanitarian aid workers were kidnapped, along with the two Kenyan pilots accompanying them, in a town on the border with Ethiopia. There are another two possibilities, however which I find less likely. First: that the kidnappers are Islamic extremists that, as has been occurring recently, wish to combat the Western and Christian presence in the area. The second is in light of the fact that there are two Somali clans present in this area who are fighting one another for control of the little local resources available. It could be that with the kidnapping of these two religious, one of the two clans is hoping to attract the attention of Kenyan authorities, to look after their needs. The Kenyan police also performed a raid last week to capture weapons illegally acquired by the clans. It could be that someone has been upset by the event. In any case, I would side with the vandal hypothesis.”
In the meantime, Somali pirates continue to take possession of boats (the most recent, a Filipino boat with 23 people on board), while the most radical branch of the militias that opposes the transitional national government, supported by Ethiopian troops – the "al-Shabaabal-Mujahedd” movement – has taken over Merka, an important port city at 90 kilometers southeast of Mogadishu, where the ships of the World Food Program disembark, placing in danger the distribution of food products to the suffering Somali people. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 12/11/2008)
