NAIROBI, Kenya, APRIL 13, 2003 (Zenit.org).- A Kenyan priest died Friday in a Nairobi hospital from gunshot wounds suffered in an attack a week earlier.
Father Martin Macharia Njoroge was traveling in his car on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital when bandits stopped him April 4.
“After dragging him from his car they shot him four times at close range,” Nairobi’s Archbishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana’a Nzeki told the Misna agency. “He did not resist them, but apparently even handed over the keys to his car, which the bandits left 500 meters away.”
The priest was left lying on the ground, “until found by a good Samaritan who took him to the hospital,” the archbishop said.
Father Macharia Njoroge died on the operating table when surgeons tried to remove a bullet from his left lung.
The priest had been ordained four years ago and served at the St. Francis Xavier Parish of Parklands. His death represented another loss for his family: His mother already lost a son, who was also a priest, four years ago.
Father Njoroge’s violent death brings to six the number of priests and religious of the archdiocese who have been killed in just over three years.
A few days ago the Kenyan government of Mwai Kibaki opened an inquiry into the death of Father John Anthony Kaiser, a Minnesota-born Mill Hill missionary. He was found dead in August 2000 near Lake Naivasha, in Kenya. Father Kaiser was known for his work in favor of the poor.
