Ranchi: A pall of gloom has descended on a village in Jharkhand, eastern India, after news reached that one of its people was killed in far away Yemen.
Rajawal, 170 km west of the state capital Ranchi, is the native place of Sister M Anselm, one of the four Missionaries of Charity nuns killed in Yemen on Friday.
The 57-year-old nun had left for Yemen nearly two years ago to serve people at an old-age home, Missionaries of Charity Sisters in Ranchi, told The Hindustan Times.
A two-member team from the congregation visited the village on Saturday to console the slain nun’s family members.
Cyprian Kullu, vicar general of Gumla diocese, said Sister Anselm used to serve the Rajawal parish.
Authorities in the district said they came to know about the nun’s death through the media. “I came to know about a Gumla resident’s death in Yemen from you. I will let you know once I get any information,” Gumla deputy commissioner, Shravan Sai, said.
Gumla superintendent of police Bhimsen Tuti too did not have any information about the incident.
The unidentified gunmen stormed the old people’s home and killed 16 people including the nuns. The home had around 80 residents at the time of the attack. The three other nuns who were killed have been identified as Sister M Madrid (44) and Sister Reginette (32) from Rwanda, and Sister M Judith (41) from Kenya.
Father Tom Uzhunnalil, a Salesian priest from Bengaluru who was at the home, was reported missing after the attack.