Father Christian Carlassare, a Comboni missionary and for ten days elected bishop of the diocese of Rumbek, in the Lakes State of South Sudan, was attacked and wounded in the night by two armed men in his home. According to reports from the Nigrizia website, a monthly of the Comboni Missionaries, shortly after midnight two men armed with Kalashnikoffs broke into the bishop’s home. After beating him up, also attacking a nun who was in the house, the two attackers fired four shots in the legs of Father Carlassare, wounding him under the knees. The bishop was rushed to the hospital in Rumbek, then he will be transported to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. His condition is stable but, having lost a lot of blood, he will soon be transferred to the Nairobi hospital in Kenya to receive a transfusion and further treatment. Speaking on the phone from the hospital with the head of the Comboni Missionaries in Italy, Father Christian said: “Pray not so much for me but for the people of Rumbek who suffer more than me”.
“It was a targeted attack,” William Kocji Kerjok, the Lakes State Information Minister, told the Juba Echo newspaper. “The attackers went straight to the elected bishop’s door, knocked and then started shooting at the door until it opened. Then they caught up with him, ordered him to sit up and shot him in the legs ». For the moment, 24 people have been arrested, and many of these are part of the church compound, according to reports from the Juba Echo. “The police and other security organs have arrested some people inside the church compound” added Kerjok, “and other arrests will have to follow because we need to know what exactly is happening in the Catholic Church of the Diocese of Rumbek”.
According to the first reconstructions, the purpose of the attack was to intimidate him and prevent his consecration as bishop. At the base, according to the Nigrizia website, perhaps there would be ethnic clashes. The Rumbek diocese is predominantly Dinka, one of the main ethnic groups in South Sudan. Despite the warm welcome that greeted him on April 16, 2021 when he took office as vicar general of the diocese, someone must not have appreciated that it was someone who had worked for fifteen in close contact with another ethnic group to become bishop of the diocese, that of the Nuer.
Father Christian Carlassare, 43, is the youngest of the bishops and has been in South Sudan (at that time still part of Sudan) since 2005. Appointed by Pope Francis on 8 March, the missionary originally from Piovene Rocchette, in the province of Padua, he should have been consecrated bishop on 23 May 2021. “I dream that the young people of South Sudan can realize their dreams” said Father Carlassare as soon as he settled in Nigrizia, “that they are not forced to take up arms or leave the country, that they can study and find a job that builds the future and gives stability to the country. I dream that the young girls of South Sudan can emancipate themselves and not be totally dependent on their heads of families and that they can make their own choices in freedom ».