NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      ROME (CWNews.com) - The last Catholic missionaries in Somalia have left the country citing their increasing fears of being taken hostage, the Vatican news agency Fides reported on Friday.

      Three sisters of the Missionaries of Consolation left the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on September 26, leaving behind their hospital where they cared for mothers and children. The departure follows the kidnapping at gunpoint of a fourth sister on September 10. She was released three days later and her captors were sentenced to one year in prison.

      In an open letter to the Somali people, the sisters said their departure "was made necessary by numerous recent threats" that have "made precarious the safety of our workers." They said they hoped to return one day. The nuns' hospital was the main provider of maternity and child care in Mogadishu, serving Somalis without charge. It treated 500 children a week, Fides said.