Courtney McGrail
A Catholic prelate in South Sudan has urged the international community not to forget the ongoing conflict in that nation.
Warning that one immediate result of ignoring South Sudan now will be an increase in “the tide of refugees reaching Europe’s shores”, Bishop Barani Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura- Yambio called on world powers to “continue to play [a] pivotal role in persuading President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President Riek Machar, to return to the negotiating table and implement the power-sharing agreement they signed last August”.
With the political situation in South Sudan remaining precarious, thousands of citizens continue to seek shelter with religious communities and are relying on them for basic supplies.
According to Bishop Kussala: “With international support, and that of the Catholic Church and other members of the South Sudan Council of Churches, as well as the aid agencies, such as Cafod and Trócaire, Caritas, and other humanitarian agencies, which are helping people stay alive, we can make sure that our country has a future.”
Spanish police hunt Franciscan’s attacker
Police in Spain are hunting for a Moroccan man who attempted to assault a Franciscan friar with a broken bottle and threatened to kill him. According to investigators, Friar Job de Jesus was sitting in a café in the southern city of Cartagena when his attacker tore his crucifix from his clothes and lunged at him with a broken bottle, shouting, “I am an Arab. I will kill you”.
Two other Moroccans intervened to save the friar from harm while a waiter who tried to help was injured with the bottle. The attacker subsequently fled the scene. Friar de Jesus later described the attack as “Christianophobia”.