Episcopal Press and News

Anglican Pakistani Bishop Reacts to Recent Violence at Christian Hospital

Episcopal News Service. August 14, 2002 [2002-192-5]

Bishop Mano Rumalshah of Peshawar, Pakistan, expressed deep sorrow at the recent attack on Taxila Christian Hospital that killed five nurses as they left chapel services.

'After nearly 100 years of Christian diakonia [service] at this hospital, for anyone to brutalise those faithful servants of God is not only a criminal act against humanity but also an act against God,' said the bishop. He cut short a visit to the United States when diocesan officials begged him to return because 'we need someone with whom people can cry.'

Rumalshah asked Christians around the world to pray for staff at the hospital, which specializes in treating eye diseases common among the poor. 'I appeal to people of sense and goodwill that sanity may prevail, with healing and reconciliation,' he said.

Although the hospital is run by the Presbyterians, all Christians in Pakistan are feeling the vulnerability because of recent attacks against Christians. In October 2001 four gunmen burst into a church service in Bahawalpur and killed 15 Christians, most of them women and children. Later a grenade attack on the international church in the diplomatic area of Islamabad killed five, including two Americans. A recent shooting at Murree Christian School, serving mostly the children of foreign missionaries, killed six Pakistanis.

The government of Pakistan is making strenuous efforts to protect the Christian community but there is speculation that recent attempts to provide more political representation for non-Muslim minorities may actually have provoked violence as a protest. Some speculated that the violence stems from the Pakistani government's alliance with the international campaign against terrorism led by the United States.

Earlier in the year Rumalshah had pleaded with several western Christian agencies working in Pakistan to allocate more funds for security, especially to provide professionally trained security guards.