Catholic charity won't stop Ugandan aid programs despite staff murder

Published: 2005-11-01

LONDON (CNS) -- A Catholic charity refused to suspend aid operations in northern Uganda despite mounting fears that the murder of one of its staff signaled more rebel attacks on church workers. Father Pierre Cibambo, Caritas Internationalis desk officer for Africa, said Caritas would continue its work in the region. "Pulling out of northern Uganda is not an option for Caritas; it isn't even possible," Father Cibambo told the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, or CAFOD, the aid agency of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Caritas has worked in northern Uganda for more than 15 years, he said. Okot Stalin, a worker with Caritas in the northern Archdiocese of Gulu, was killed Oct. 26 as he rode his motorcycle to a monitoring program. Stalin was one of two nongovernmental organization workers killed by suspected rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army in three separate attacks Oct. 25 and 26. The murders prompted Oxfam, a British charity, to suspend its operations in two violence-ridden districts of northern Uganda.

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