“Spiritually transformative”: Catholic Nun on Years Spent in Jihadist Captivity in Mali

The member of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate added that her mission in Mali and her experience with jihadists in the West African country had taught her the importance of love and respect regardless of one's religious affiliation.

She narrated having shared her captivity with two women: a Muslim and a Protestant, and added, “I learned that if we love, accept and respect one another, we can live as brothers and sisters.”

Accepting one another, she clarified, does not mean giving up one’s beliefs, “for true respect, is about listening, welcoming, and acknowledging everyone for who they are.”

Sr. Gloria began to work in Mali in 2010, reaching out mainly to women in the mostly Muslim country.

In the Foreword, she shares that it was her Congregation's fraternal nature that made the people of Mali so fond of the missionaries. 

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“The Muslims of the community in which we served admired us for two things: constant prayers and open fraternity. They always saw us united and praying, working for others, with kindness, regardless of discomforts or precarious conditions, with a permanent smile and neighborliness. Differences in ethnicity, class, or religion made no difference to us; we treated everyone with love,” the Colombian Nun says.

She recounts experiencing the same love in Muslim families who invited the missionaries on important occasions such as the celebrations at the end of Ramadan.

“We were invited to celebrate in their (Muslim) homes, and we were always treated with great kindness,” Sr. Gloria recounts, and adds, “There were no closed doors or walls. At the same time, this provided an opportunity to evangelize in our own way, for we told them that our work and fraternal relationship with different people was not the work of this or that sister, but that everything was done thanks to God, who is the giver of all blessings.”

To kidnappers, fraternal love was a language they never understood, the Catholic Nun says.

She says that at her kidnapping, the fraternity she had felt in her missionary work vanished.

“Freedom, not only physical liberty, which allowed me to move without restrictions, became only a word, an immense longing. As time went by, and perhaps because of what I had previously experienced in continuous, loving, respectful, and kind contact with people of every religious denomination and all conditions, I realized that I had not only lost my own freedom, but also my religious liberty,” Sr. Gloria narrates.

She adds that on numerous instances, she was singled out, beaten, and insulted for professing her Catholic faith.

The Catholic Nun underwent adverse circumstances, including the bad weather, the daily abuse, humiliations, and deprivation of food and water.

In all these circumstances, her faith remained unmoved, she testifies, and explains, “I never – not once – failed to thank God for allowing me to wake up and be alive amid all the difficulties and dangers: How could I not praise you, bless you and thank you, my God? For you have filled me with peace in the face of insults and mistreatment!”

Sr. Gloria was released from her captivity on 9 October 2021, and about eight months after her being set free, she still prays for the conversion of the souls of her captors.

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Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.