Africanews
Mapourdit is a village in the SPLA controlled area in Southern Sudan. Here in 1993 two priests set up their huts next to those of the people and later, with the help of three sisters, started a dispensary and a school which eventually got 1,500 pupils. On August 17, 1996, the missionaries were imprisoned and the property of the mission - mainly bags of beans, rice, maize, for feeding the sick and the pupils - were looted. Absurd accusations were moved against the missionaries. They were released only twelve days later. It is not yet clear what caused the local SPLA commander to subject the missionaries to such an ordeal. |
At a time when her peers in several different fields have long retired, Australian Sister Moira Lynch, 72, is still raring to go. Yet hers has been an extremely demanding career that has not only entailed extensive travels, but has mostly entailed dealing with some of the least fortunate members of the humanity - the wretched of the earth to quote that famous author, Franz Fanon.
The career nun and nurse had just been released from a two-week detention by Sudanese People's Liberation Army forces when I caught up with her in Nairobi. Accompanying her were compatriots Sister Mary Batchelor, 67, and Sister Maureen Carey, 52.
What was most striking about the elderly nun was her liveliness and apparent determination to fight on, her age and the hostile Sudanese environment where she is currently based notwithstanding.
The three, together with American Father Michael Barton, 48, Italian Brother Raniero Iacomella, 26, and Father Raphael Riel, 48, Sudanese and Vicar General of Rumbek Diocese, were in the wee hours of August 17 taken prisoners by SPLA forces. The soldiers invaded their mission station at the village of Mapourdit in southern Sudan.
The charges against the missionaries were stated as "hindering SPLA recruitment, being found in possession of documents proving that they are spies from foreign countries and working for the spread of Islam under the disguise of the cross".
Sr. Moira recalls vividly how on the material day, the SPLA soldiers under the command of Major Marial Nuor stormed their compound at around 5 am. "I was already in the chapel for my morning prayers when I heard some commotion within our compound. I rushed out to establish what was happening and was met by the soldiers who immediately ordered me to sit on the ground."
The hair raising episode turned out to be the beginning of what was to culminate in a 10-day incarceration.
Sister Moira recalls how the soldiers acted expeditiously and ordered her colleagues who were still in bed out of their respective rooms. "They were not even given time to dress properly," she said.
They were to spend a greater part of the day as prisoners within the mission compound, during which time they were isolated from each other. In the mean time, the soldiers ransacked every building and turned practically everything upside down. A great deal of looting of church and personal property took place during all that time.
The soldiers confiscated, among other things, several letters Sister Moira and her compatriots had written to friends and relatives in Australia. The letters were due to be posted in Nairobi in the next few days.
Among other issues, the letters had details of how five teachers from the mission school with 1,500 pupils had recently been forcibly conscripted by the SPLA. It was this particular issue that was to be used by the SPLA soldiers to justify their claims that the missionaries were spies in their midst.
"We had all along suspected you people of working for Khartoum government but now we have found the evidence," Sister Moira remembers the soldiers thundering. The soldiers demanded that they disclose how much the Islamic regime paid them.
"How could I be accused of working for the spread of Islam when I do not even know the first word in Islam?" she posed with a chuckle.
Come evening and the six missionaries were allowed to reunite in the chapel where they celebrated mass before being ordered into their car for an unknown destination. "We were allowed to take our beddings with us to what turned out to be a prison, and where we were to spend about two weeks" the nun who came to the Sudan last year said.
Sister Maureen was, however, freed after only three days to go and keep the missionary clinic running. Brother Iacomella was freed but kept under house arrest in the mission.
Sister Moira says they were not mistreated while in confinement. She also believes that their arrest and eventual detention did not have the blessings of SPLA's top-most leadership. However, it dealt a deadly blow to the main rebel movement's image that may take a long time to heal. The news about the strange turn of events spread like a bush fire and there was pressure from almost every corner of the globe on SPLA to have the missionaries released.
A second born in a family of seven, Sister Moira's career dates back to 1954 when she began serving as a nun and a nurse in Sydney. Her father, who was a farmer originally came from Ireland and so was her mother who was a housewife. The mother died when she was still very young.
After 16 years of service, she moved to Perth in the northern part of her motherland where she worked in a health centre among the Aborigines for six years.
1977 saw her move back to Sydney where her responsiblities mainly revolved around taking care of elderly sisters and priests.
Come 1995 and the elderly Moira was off to the troubled southern Sudan. She had heard about the appalling state of deprivation in the region and getting involved "was important for me".
"I had always felt there was a risk but the need in southern Sudan overrides the risk," she asserts.
Sister Moira has been actively involved in running the clinic and the school at Mapourdit since her debut in the Sudan. She is eager to go back to Mapourdit. Her only request is of not being harassed by the movement that is supposed to "liberate" the people she serves.
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