During Pentecost this year, he said, “many people were killed or seriously injured and had to be airlifted out” from the region.
“The terrorists have also seized livestock and are doing everything they can to get the population to either convert [to Islam] or evacuate,” he added, noting that many women are kidnapped into sex slavery while refugees are “left to wander around in the forest with no possessions, and many die due to lack of food and care.”
Burkina Faso last year topped the list of countries worldwide with the most anti-Christian attacks, Rouamba said. Regional evangelization “is recent, dating back no more than 150 years, and in most regions less than 100 years,” he said.
The priest said the religious order is working on opening a regional ministry house in the Diocese of Ouagadougou, based out of the nation’s capital of the same name. That house will work to both spread the Gospel message and train lay ministers to “send them on mission to difficult places.”
The religious order, Rouamba said, is most pointedly concerned with “forgiveness” after years of brutal religious violence in the country. “Forgetting,” he said, “is impossible.”
“This is one of the reasons why we would like to set up support units to offer spiritual and psychological support,” he said. “Many people come to us simply to be listened to.”
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