Authorities in Burkina Faso Apologize after Shooting Zambian Catholic Missionary

Dablo, 03 April, 2023 / 9:25 PM

Police in Burkina Faso have sent an apology to the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) after a shooting incident that claimed a member of the Society of Apostolic Life. 

Moses Sense Simukonde, a 34-year-old Zambian Missionary, was reportedly shot dead on March 29 in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, by soldiers who were allegedly trying to stop people from crossing a security zone.

The Zambian Missionary was traveling in a vehicle passing through the area at the time and was shot.

In a report that was sent to Agenzia Fides, the information service of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Propaganda Fide, the White Fathers said that authorities in Burkina Faso had apologized for the shooting.

“The tragedy occurred around 9 in the evening on March 29, when our brother was passing near the checkpoint set up by the military police,” a Missionary of Africa in Burkina Faso says in the April 1 Agenzia Fides report.

The source adds, “Soldiers fired several times at individuals whom they claimed posed a threat. Unfortunately, one of the shots hit Brother Moses, killing him. The military police have apologized in an official letter to our congregation and the family of the missionary brother.”

Moses Simukonde was born in Zambia’s Monze Catholic Diocese on June 28, 1988. 

He had been a missionary for six years and had previously served in Niger. 

Up to his death, the Zambian-born Missionary was working at the reception home for the White Fathers in Ouagadougou.

Simukonde’s death comes barely three months after the murder of Fr. Jacques Yaro Zerbo, a Malian-born Catholic Priest who, at the time of his killing, was serving in Burkina Faso’s Dédougou Diocese.

Bishop Prosper Bonaventure Ky announced on January 3 with “deep sorrow” the death of Fr. Zerbo, adding that the late Catholic Priest was killed on January 2 “by unidentified armed men” in Soro, Northwestern Burkina Faso.

The killers of the Malian Catholic Priest also took his vehicle.

Agenzia Fides has reported that since 2015, Burkina Faso has been going through a phase of serious political instability due to the violence of jihadist groups present in several areas.

Insurgency, the information service of Propaganda Fide says, has caused at least 10,000 deaths and some two million displaced people. 

On March 30, a state of emergency was declared in eight regions of the country, which comprise 22 departments corresponding to nearly half of the national territory.