A bishop in southern Sudan (Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambiohas) begged the international community to intervene after the government failed to stop attacks on Christians in the region by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
Catholic Culture
A bishop in southern Sudan has begged the international community to intervene after the government failed to stop attacks on Christians in the region by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
“Nobody is coming to our aid,” said Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio after a gang of LRA soldiers stormed a parish, desecrated the Host, kidnapped 17 young people, and mutilated one. “We are asking those who are responsible in the international community to do something about it.” The LRA, which has wreaked havoc in Uganda and neighboring countries since its foundation in 1987, also killed six people by nailing them to wood.
Government inaction prompted 20,000 area Christians to walk barefoot for two miles in sackcloth and ashes.
Two million lost their lives in the long Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) between the Muslim north and the largely animist and Christian south. The civil war ended when President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, indicted earlier this year by the International Criminal Court, granted the south limited autonomy. Since 2005, the nation’s five million Catholics have fallen under two sets of religion laws. In the north, all schools– even Christian schools– must offer instruction in Islam, and converts from Islam to Christianity face not only criminal charges but also death at the hands of their families. In the south, Christians enjoy religious freedom.
Tags: Christian Persecution
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I am happy with the Struggle and Love of Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro kussala of the Catholic Diocese of Tombura – yambio for his people.
If the Government of South Sudan is neglecting Western Equatoria State mainly because the majority of the people who live there are the azande people,then it is the responsibility of the church to call for the International Community to intervene.I also urge the other religious leaders to the join the band wagon of Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro kussala.Long live Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Long the Catholic Church in Western Equatoria State.