Elderly nuns sexually assaulted and killed in Burundi

September 9, 2014 — A set of horrific attacks on a convent in Bujumbura, capital city of Burundi left three elderly Italian nuns sexually assaulted and dead:

Three Italian nuns were found murdered over the weekend in the north of Burundi’s capital, officials and a priest in the African state said on Monday.
Police initially reported that two nuns were stabbed to death on Sunday afternoon. The killer then battered one of the two with a rock, before fleeing the convent.
Father Mario Pulicini, responsible for the parish in Kamenge, a northern suburb of Bujumbura, named the nuns as Lucia Pulici, who was 75 and due to celebrate her birthday on Monday, and Olga Raschietti, 82. He said they were found dead in their dormitory on Sunday.


Bernardetta Boggian, Olga Raschietti and Lucia Pulici. Photo: Twitter

But in the early hours of Monday morning, another nun in the same convent was killed, her body beaten and head hacked off. Colleagues named her as Bernadette Boggia, aged 79.
“It is very difficult to know the reason behind the killing, but nothing can justify it,” Pulicini said.
The Vatican said the killings had “greatly saddened” Pope Francis. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said in a telegram sent on the pope’s behalf: “Pope Francis has learned with great sadness of the murder of three nuns.”
Burundi’s police said the motive of the killing was not clear, pointing out that no money was taken.
The three nuns had served in Burundi for seven years, after working several years in the east of another central African state, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Raschietti had spent the last 50 years of her life in Africa. Pulici and Raschietti had helped look after sick people, the order said, while Boggian worked in a sewing school they had set up for girls.
Source: Times Live