An elderly nun who was gunned down at the hospital where she worked in Somalia’s capital was ”specifically targeted before being executed by gunmen lying in wait”, a hospital official said on Monday.
Willy Huber, regional director of the Austrian-funded hospital where 65-year-old Sister Leonella had worked for four years, said the killing was not random.
”She had no chance,” said Huber, who heads the SOS Kinderdorf organisation in East Africa. ”It was like an execution.”
There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday’s shooting, but many fear it could be linked to worldwide Muslim anger toward Pope Benedict XVI. In a speech last week, the pope quoted a medieval text that characterised some of the teachings of Islam’s founder as ”evil and inhuman” and referred to spreading Islam ”by the sword”.
Sister Leonella was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run SOS hospital. Her bodyguard also was slain. The two had been walking the 10m from the Mogadishu hospital to the sister’s home, where three other nuns were waiting to have lunch with her.
”The gunmen specifically targeted her,” Huber said. ”They were waiting for her. As she crossed the road they opened fire. We had no warning of this.”
He spoke after accompanying the Italian nun’s body to Nairobi, Kenya, late on Sunday. He said she will be buried in the capital later this week. Three other nuns who also worked at the hospital were pulled out of the Somali capital, and no decision has been made on their return.
Sister Leonella, whose birth name was Rosa Sgorbati, had lived and worked in Kenya and Somalia for 38 years, her family said.
Like many foreigners, she travelled with a bodyguard in this Horn of Africa nation, which slid into chaos after warlords overthrew Somalia’s long-time dictator in 1991. A Swedish journalist, Martin Adler, was shot dead in June during a demonstration in Mogadishu.
An Islamic militia seized control of Mogadishu in recent months and has extended its control over much of southern Somalia, challenging a weak, United Nations-backed government that hasn’t been able to exert any power outside its base in Baidoa, 250km from the capital.
The militia has imposed strict religious rule in the areas under its sway, and its Islamic courts are credited with bringing a semblance of order, but many in the West fear a Taliban-style regime could emerge.
Several witnesses blamed Sunday’s shooting on the pope’s remarks.
”I am sure the killers were angered by the pope’s speech in which he attacked our prophet,” said Ashe Ahmed Ali, one of the many who witnessed the shooting.
Huber said he didn’t know why the nun had been targeted but it could have been prompted by Muslim anger over the pope’s remarks.
”A place like Mogadishu is very volatile and it is difficult to establish the motives behind this. But the pope’s comments could well have been the spark because it just takes one person to react to comments like that,” he said. ”Even the sisters feel that it was planned.”
In Italy, Benedict said on Sunday he was ”deeply sorry” about the reaction to his remarks, saying the text he quoted did not reflect his personal opinion. — Sapa-AP