AFRICA/CAMEROON - Even a Xaverian missionary among the 79 who died in the train crash

Tuesday, 25 October 2016 missionaries  

Yaounde (Agenzia Fides) - There is also an Italian Xaverian missionary, Father Carlo Girola, of the Pious Society of St. Francis Xavier for Foreign Missions, among the victims in the train accident on October 21 on the Yaounde-Douala-line, in Cameroon, which caused 79 victims.
According to a statement sent to Agenzia Fides, Fr. Girola lived in Yaounde, in Oyom-Abang neighborhood in the suburbs. "For the journey which would have taken him to Italy, the missionary had decided not to embark alone at Yaounde airport, but to go first to Douala by bus, and from there leave with another confrere. Due to the interruption of the road for the fall of a bridge, Fr. Girola had to take a train ... A scenario known to all those who have traveled and lived in Cameroon: torrential rains, figures of men and women protected only by banana leaves".
Fr. Carlo Girola was 68 years old. He was born in Oltrona San Mamette, in the Italian province of Como. From 1984 to 2007 he was a missionary in Cameroon and Chad. In 2007 he was elected member of the Executive Board of the Congregation in Rome (see Fides 12/7/2007). After the end of his term, in 2014, he went back in Cameroon, worked in the formation of theologians and in missionary animation. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 25/10/2016)


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