wfn.org | ARCHBISHOP'S LIFE THREATENED

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

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Feb. 7, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.2.1.5]

ZAIRE: ARCHBISHOP'S LIFE THREATENED

(CMS see earlier story 97.3.13.)  News has been received from the Church
Mission Society in London that during the recent fighting in
north-eastern
Zaire, the Archbishop of Zaire, the Most Revd Patrice Njojo, was nearly
killed.

The Archbishop is now safely at home in Boga but while he was staying at
Kyabwohe by the Semliki river near the Ugandan border three bandits
forced
themselves into the house where he was staying. The Archbishop writes:
"They forced me to lie flat on the ground together with the house owner.
They fired their guns into the ground about 50cm from me.  They did the
same to the house owner, they wanted to kill him.  He got under my bed
together with the children who were with me...Following a fierce
argument
about taking the house owner out, they told me to produce my money.  By
good
fortune I did have some about  65,000 Ugandan shillings.  Having given
them
this they said it was very little.  They told me to produce dollars and
I
had $145 which they took, then I was forced to turn out all my
belongings in
my case but they found no more money.  Finally they told me to go into
the
house and I knew my end had come.  But the Lord did his own miracles
again,
because when they fired into the house they shot out the lamp and this
enabled me to hide in one corner of the house and the bullets passed
right
through.  As they were outside they thought I was dead, as did the wife
of
the house owner. She was the first to enter the house and see what had
happened to me.  The three bandits ran away, each of them had a gun.

The Archbishop writes: "I thank God for his protection and specially for
bringing us through 1996 into a new year".  Although there were few
people
in Boga for Christmas by New Year's Day the Church was full.