By Arnold Neliba
OUAGADOUGOU, APRIL 14, 2023 (CISA) – 34-year-old Br Moses Simukonde of the religious Society of Missionaries of Africa who was accidentally shot dead in Burkina Faso, was on Wednesday, April 12, buried in Ouagadougou.
It is reported that the Zambian missionary was shot dead by soldiers who were reportedly trying to stop people from crossing a security zone in an area where he was travelling in a vehicle.
“On the evening of Wednesday, March 29, 2023, around 9 p.m., guards stationed on Independence Avenue used their firearms to arrest a suspicious individual on foot, who allegedly refused to comply with the summons. Unfortunately, a user who was travelling in a Nissan Qashqai vehicle registered 8219D8 03, in the vicinity was fatally injured,” reads a statement by the military loosely translated from French.
While condoling with the family of Br Simukonde, the military assured them of investigations into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
According to reports, soldiers fired several times at individuals whom they claimed posed a threat. Unfortunately, one of the shots hit the religious brother killing him on the spot.
Br Moses Simukonde was born in Zambia’s Monze Catholic Diocese on June 28, 1988. He had been a missionary for six years and had previously served in Niger.
Up to his death, the Zambian-born Missionary was working at the reception home for the White Fathers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Family, friends, representatives from the government and the Ambassador of Zambia to Burkina Faso congregated at the Jean XXIII Catholic parish of Ouagadougou for the funeral Mass presided over by His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, the archbishop of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Ouagadougou.
