An 83-year-old Italian nun died in an attack Tuesday night at the mission where she lived, in the city of Nacala, in Mozambique, while two others managed to escape, the Comboni Missionaries announced Wednesday.
“The rebels attacked the mission, setting fire to all the parish buildings. Sister Maria, a Comboni missionary born in the city of Vittorio Veneto (north), died during the ambush. All the survivors are now fleeing to Nacala,” she said. the Secretary General of the Italian Comboni Sisters, Enza Carini.
According to the same source, two other nuns from the community, one Italian and one Spanish, “managed to escape and hide in the woods, along with a group of girls.”
The nun, who had lived in Mozambique since 1963, was in the Chipene parish in the Nacala diocese, which was home to hundreds of people fleeing fighting in the north of the country, the source explained.
According to reports sent to the missionary agency Fides, the attackers destroyed the mission structures, including the church, the hospital and the primary and secondary school, and the Italian nun was shot in the head when she tried to reach the bedroom where the few remaining students.
Two other Italian missionaries who were on the mission were saved, said the Comboni Missionaries of Pordenone, Italy.
Nampula Archbishop Inacio Saure said he was not sure of the identity of the attackers, but said it was “very likely” they were Islamic terrorists.
The province of Nampula, along with Cabo Delgado, is the scene of instability caused by the presence of terrorist groups linked to the Islamic State.
Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas but has been terrorized since 2017 by armed violence, with some attacks claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.
The insurgency led a year ago to a military response by Rwandan forces and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts close to gas projects, but provoking a new wave of attacks in other areas, closer to Pemba, provincial capital.
There are some 800,000 internally displaced persons due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and some 4,000 dead, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.
Source: TSF
