Sudan – Sniper sparks a fire at the FMA house in Karthoum

04 January 2024

(ANS – Karthoum) – The Dar Mariam house of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) in Karthoum, Sudan, was again affected by the war. In the early afternoon of Tuesday, 2 January, at around 2 pm, a sniper from one of the rebel groups involved in the war set fire to the second floor of the house. The rooms and the hall on the affected side of the floor were badly damaged. But the great help offered by the neighbours and some soldiers made it possible to put out the fire in two hours.

“No one was injured in the accident! Thank God! And may his will and his glory always prevail!" Fr Jacob Thelekkadan, an Indian Salesian missionary in the country, who has been living in the Dar Mariam house of the FMA since shortly after the outbreak of the war, commented on the matter.

Although largely forgotten by the outside world, the war in Sudan continues, involving several paramilitary factions in addition to the national army, and has already reached the 265th day of fighting, death, and destruction. With official data at a standstill last October, there are still about 10,000 victims and almost 12,000 injured, while according to information released by the United Nations International Office for Migration at the end of 2023, the conflict had caused almost 6 million internally displaced people and over 1.5 million refugees in other countries.

The Dar Mariam house of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians – which in addition to the Sisters and Fr Jacob also houses several mothers and children and a group of men, some of them elderly and sick – had already been affected by the war not even two months before this last episode: on the morning of 3 November 2023, in fact, it had been hit by a large bomb. Also in that case, serious damage resulted for several classrooms and structures of the work, but providentially only a few minor injuries.

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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