Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kampala (Fides Service) – The conditions of Italian Comboni Missionary, Father Guglielmo Maffeis, attacked by bandits at Iceme Catholic Mission in northern Uganda on 6 September are improving, his confreres at Lira mission, tell Fides Service. Lira mission is 50 km from where Fr Gugliemo is hospitalised, and it was the first opened by the Comboni Fathers in this area. “He has a broken rib and several bruises after being beaten by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army LRA , but other wise he is well, although the doctors have ordered him 30 days rest”, the missionaries say. According to the injured priest the aggressors attacked while he was asleep, hitting him several times. Then they sacked the priests’ house and the church destroying church furniture and pulling out the doors. His confreres say that “during the raid in Iceme mission the rebels took 25 people away to make soldiers of them”.
“This is the fourth time in a few years that the mission has been sacked” the missionaries say. “Last year rebels destroyed the mission’s three motor vehicles which were indispensable for our pastoral work to reach villages hundreds of kilometres away. These aggressors always destroy everything that they cannot take with them. They come in search of food, money radio equipment etc.”
Father Guglielmo is one of many missionaries attacked by bandits. In recent years a number of missions have been targeted and church personnel killed or wounded. “It cannot be said for certain that behind these attacks there is a plan to strike the Catholic Church in Uganda, also because we are not sure that the attackers are always of the same group” the missionaries say. In fact “in northern Ugandan many groups hide behind the LRA tag. This absurd situation has been going on for 18 long years, mainly at the expense of innocent civilians who are harassed, kidnapped or killed for no reason at all”.
Fr Maffeis, aged 70, originally from Bergamo diocese in Italy, has been on mission in Uganda since 1962. LM (Fides Service 9/9/2003 EM lines 30 Words: 386)
