Canada’s government is trying to get more information about a 74-year-old nun who was kidnapped along with two priests in Cameroon on Saturday. Gilberte Bussière had been in the west African country for more than 30 years.
There is a long tradition of priests and nuns from Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec going to Africa to help the poor or to set up schools.
Bussière had briefly returned to Canada for cancer treatment, but was eager to return to Africa citing concern for the people she helped there. A childhood friend, Bernadette Blais-Fréchette, says she is worried she may never see Bussière again and that she is still weak.
No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, but security forces in Cameroon believe they were orchestrated by Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group based in Nigeria.
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