A Sudanese bishop suffered severe injuries in an attack by paramilitaries, leaving him unable to eat solid food. Source: The Tablet.
Members of the Rapid Support Force (RSF) seized Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali of El-Obeid, subjected him to a beating and threatened to execute him as he travelled back to his diocese from a meeting in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
He had attended a Eucharistic Congress on November 24 and celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, whose members called on the authorities to protect Bishop Andali following the attack.
“We condemn the violence against the innocent bishop and servant for all,” said Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Yambio-Tombura, in South Sudan. “We ask respect for this man of God and for all human beings,” he said.
“We are deeply saddened and troubled by the news,” said Bishop Remijo Adam of Wau. He said Bishop Andali had told him in a text message that RSF gunmen had detained him and an aide as they crossed the border at the South Sudanese town of Renk, and beat him on the face, neck and the side of the head.
They had already been robbed by soldiers of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) during their travel.
“I can’t eat food and worse of it, we narrowly missed martyrdom,” said Bishop Andali in the message, explaining that the paramilitaries had been preparing to execute him and his companion when an RSF commander ordered their release.
Some reports said the paramilitaries detained the bishop because he is from an ethnic group in the Nuba Mountains region in South Kordofan State, which is controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North – a breakaway faction in Sudan’s civil war, separate from the RSF and SAF.
Since last year, battles between SAF and RSF have killed an estimated 61,000 people and displaced more than 11 million. Both sides have been accused of war crimes and ethnic violence.
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Sudanese bishop ‘cannot eat’ after beating by militia (By Fredrick Nzwili, The Tablet)
