NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      ROME (CWNews.com) - Two more members of the Missionaries of Charity religious order were murdered by Sierra Leone rebels who had held them hostage last week, just a week after a fellow nun was killed.

      The Rome-based missionary news agency MISNA said on Friday that two nuns were shot and killed, a third was wounded and under treatment at a hospital, and three other nuns and a religious brother were freed without harm. The group of missionaries was kidnapped by rebels in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, on January 14 by rebels fighting government troops.

      Last Saturday, the rebels killed one nun and wounded a priest as they fled from advancing troops. Two other priests and the archbishop of Freetown escaped from their captors unharmed earlier this month. More than 3,000 people have been killed since rebels renewed their offensive against the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in December.

      Church News, reporting via Noticias Eclesias, reported that after the liberation of Italian missionary Gugliermo Zambiasi and of three other religious on the 29 of January, it was known that Sisters Sueva of Bangladesh, and Carmeline of Kenya, were victims of another combat with the rebels of the United Revolutionary Front (URF). Both sisters, as well as the other liberated catholic missionaries were taken hostage by the URF on the 14th of January. The group consisted of six Missionaries of Charity, five priests and Archbishop Joseph Ganda, of Freetown. To that same group belonged sister Aloyius Mary, also belongings to the Missionaries of Charity, killed by the rebels on the 22nd of January.