Nutty Nation: How Sister Mary and Sister Regina Died
Sister Mary Abbud, 68, the headmistress of Sacred Heart School in Juba, and Sister Regina Roba who ran a health centre, both belonging to the Congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, were killed with three other people on August 16 at 10am in an ambush. Originally from Uganda, both sisters had worked in South Sudan for over ten years.
They were returning to Juba on a Mitsubishi Rosa bus and on a Toyota Noah van with other sisters and faithful after celebrating the centenary of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Loa (Torit Diocese) when unidentified armed men attacked them.
Some of the passengers managed to escape into the nearby bushes after the armed men fired at their vehicles’ windshields and on the fuel tank. The van went up in flames.
The road is the country's most important supply route as the production of even basic foodstuffs is scarce in South Sudan. Violent ambushes on convoys of trucks are frequent.
According to Nigrizia.it (August 17), South Sudan is a country where control of the territory is no longer exercised by the government, but by different armed groups fighting each other, among which gangs of common criminals are inserted with impunity.
Tombura-Yambio Bishop Barani Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala wrote that the sisters’ “facility with our local languages, their phenomenal sense of humor, and the depth of their insight will be missed in this nutty nation and world where they made, and will continue to make, a difference.”
A week before, a similar attack on the same highway left two dead and three others injured.
00:25
