The Watchman

Two of the Three Came Home. It Took Thirteen Days for Anyone to Find Out.

Two of the three church leaders taken from Heiban were released on July 28 and August 1. The news took thirteen days to leave the Nuba Mountains, and it reached us after we published.

Yesterday morning this site told you that three church leaders were missing from Heiban.

Two of them were already free.

The Rev. Yaqob Ibrahim Tia walked out on July 28. Zakaria Suliman Jana walked out on August 1. Morning Star News confirmed both releases on Monday, thirteen days after the first man was let go. The Nuba Mountains are closed to reporters. News leaves that place on foot, and it leaves slowly.

So here is the correction, and here is the part the correction does not fix. Two men are home. One is buried. And nobody has said why any of it happened.

His Church Received 293 Dollars. The Court in Dak Lak Gave Him Seven and a Half Years.

The state counted the money to the last dong. It came to about 293 dollars, and it bought a pastor seven and a half years.

He Said Mass That Morning Standing In for Someone Else. He Was Found on Church Road.

Father Samuel Oyetoro filled in for a colleague on leave, said Mass, and was found on Church Road with machete wounds. Four days later gunmen took three people from a Sunday Mass in another state.

Engraving of a small hillside church in the Nuba Mountains, its door standing open, empty stools outside, smoke on the far ridge.

Three Church Leaders Are Gone From One Town in Sudan. Nobody Has Asked for Money.

Heiban lost three church leaders in nine days. In three months of abductions, no one has demanded a ransom for any of them. That absence is the story.

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