Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
CMD
Adaba (Agenzia Fides) - "Our missions are numerically small, but we immediately followed the indications that were given to us by public and religious institutions regarding Covid-19", explains missionary Fr. Nicola de Guio, missionary fidei donum in Adaba, Apostolic Prefecture of Robe. "We have been celebrating only in the mission of Adaba for some weeks now, where we are resident, but we can no longer go to the other two missions of Dodola and Kokossa, which are located at 25 and 95 km away. The children in a family home adjacent to the compound take part in the daily liturgy, they are just over a dozen. We try to be as close as we can in this small mission reality. We try to be present through telephone calls and in this way we carry out our missionary commitment", remarks the priest.
"We feel strong concern for the entire population who have no way of protecting themselves and who are in very precarious human conditions. In particular, in the Apostolic Prefecture, with the closure from mid-March of the schools that are part of the mission and that are financed with the fees, 180 employees could be left without a salary. A small school fund will guarantee wages for one or two months. At this moment we missionaries are aware that we are however a small and humble sign of the love of Christ in this land".
"Day by day - don Nicola writes - you perceive the intensification of the concern and the seriousness of the situation which weighs on the scarcity and precariousness of the health system. Ordinary people, not only the poor, are unable to implement certain preventive measures".
The first case of contagion in Ethiopia was reported on March 13, and both the Ethiopian government and the Catholic Church are trying to take adequate prevention measures. Lockdown is impossible for a population that lives from very little, sleeps in huts or shacks, and has a tradition that is often only oral, or gestural. Deaths caused by starvation would be far more than those of the virus. What has worsened the situation is the recent invasion of grasshoppers that has devastated 200 thousand hectares of cultivated land. (NdG/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 22/4/2020)
