Friday, March 19, 2010

EL SALVADOR: IARCA primate, two others survive gunfire


From Episcopal Life Online-

The Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador March 18 publicly denounced the attempted murder of Bishop Martín Barahona and two others, according to a news release issued by the church.

The incident happened in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, on March 17 when an unknown man approached and fired upon Barahona, a church musician and Francis Martínez, the bishop's driver, according to news reports. Barahona was unharmed, but Martinez was hit in the stomach and his arm was broken by one of the gunshots. He is in "grave but stable condition," said the Rev. Lee Alison Crawford, rector of Trinity Church in Rutland, Vermont and a member of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council, in a telephone interview with ENS.

"At this point we don't know if there was a particular motivation or whether this was random, which is symptomatic of the pervasive violence that affects all sectors of daily life in El Salvador," she said.

Crawford, who is the canon missioner of the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador, said she had been in touch with church members in El Salvador after receiving word of the shooting.

The ongoing violence in the country, she said, comes from a "complex combination" of factors, including gang and other criminal activity, a "profusion of arms floating around the country" since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s and the country's economic stresses.

More here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_120953_ENG_HTM.htm

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