CONCERN is increasin g for the safety of En g lish Mill Hill

Fr John Ashworth, 29 who was captured with t wo other priests in southern Sudan during an anti-government raid on the oil town of Bentiu. Church officials in Khartoum said they received a radio message on September 4 which alleged the men had been kidnapped by the guerrillas, but gave no further details. The two other priests were identified as Peter American Fr Pet Curtin Major, 45, another Mill Hill
nary working at the Rentiu Mission, which is about 500 miles south east of Khartoum, and Sudanese diocesan priest Fr Zakafia Chatin.
Bentiu isat the centre of a particularly volatile region of the country which has been the scene of significant rebel! activity. Fr Ashworth and Fr Major were thought to be the only two foreigners left in that part of Sudan. The region erupted into violence last year after the resurgence of a rebellion by the southern non-Moslem minority against the northern Moslems who dominate the government. There have been a spate of kidnappings in the area over pa recent months, particularlydirected at the Chevron company which is drilling for oil. A spokesman for the Mill Hill missionaries in London said this week that, if the "kidnapping" ollowed the pattern of previous similar incidents, the priests would eventually be freed unharmed.
Fr Ashworth, who was born in Stepney, East London, and educated at Durham University, pastoral work
was engaged in and small-scale agricultural projects at the mission, the spokesman said.
There are about a million Catholics in Sudan's 19 million population, most of whom are in the southern part of the country.