Filipinos Junrey and Janine among the missionary martyrs of 2023

Annual report from the Pontifical Mission Societies' Fides news agency inlcudes the two liturgical pastoral workers killed in the massacre at the Marawi University. A total of 20 missionaries were killed around the world in the year that is drawing to a close.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Junrey Barbante, 24 years old, a recent graduate, originally from the island of Bohol, and Janine Arenas, 18 years old, a student originally from Balabagan, in the province of Lanao del Norte. Two young lay people engaged in liturgical animation in the chaplaincy of the Marawi State University of Marawi and for this reason killed together with two other peers in the attack that bloodied the Mass on the first Sunday of Advent in the Philippines.

Together with Samar Kamal Anton and her mother Nahida Khalil Anton - the two Christian women killed in front of the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza on 18 December - they are the face of Asia in the report on missionaries killed around the world in 2023 which - like every end of the year - was released today by Fides, the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

Not simply Christians killed, but missionaries as pastoral workers engaged in serving their local Church. In fact, Junrey and Janine assiduously attended the university chaplaincy and at the Mass hit by the Islamist attack they were there as every week to take care of the liturgical animation.

But Samar and Nahid, hit in Gaza by the Israeli army's offensive like thousands of other civilian victims, were also part of the Sant'Anna Group, a confraternity that brings together Catholic and Orthodox Christian women in Gaza involved in a journey of faith with meetings weekly prayer and catechetical sessions and apostolic activities, especially for the poor and the disabled.

According to data collected by Fides, in 2023, 20 missionaries were killed in the world: 1 bishop (Msgr. David O'Connell), 8 priests, 2 non-priestly religious men, 1 seminarian, 1 novice and 7 lay men and women. Africa once again becomes the continent that has seen the greatest number of these killings, while among the individual countries, Nigeria and Mexico are still the most tragically affected with 4 missionaries killed each.

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• Fides
• missionaries killed
• Marawi
• Philippines