8 January 2004 – Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Domingo Albert said that the Philippines is deeply shocked and profoundly saddened by the tragic death of Monsignor Michael Courtney, the Apostolic Nuncio in Burundi, who was brutally murdered in a road ambush on 29 December 2003 in Minago, about 50 kilometers south of Bujumbura in the Bururi province of Burundi. One of the bullets hit the 58-year-old Papal Nuncio in the head. He died later in the day in the operating room of a hospital.

“I would like to convey our condolences to His Holiness the Pope and to the bereaved family of Monsignor Courtney.  We condemn this dastardly act. It is our hope that the perpetrators of this heinous crime will be brought to justice,” Secretary Albert said.

“I understand that Monsignor Courtney was involved in attempts to end the war in Burundi.  Some 300,000 people have died in 10 years of war between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis there and Monsignor Courtney was part of certain efforts to achieve peace.  I am confident that his courage and sacrifice will not be in vain,” Secretary Albert said, as fresh reports were coming in that peace talks between warring groups were in the offing and that efforts to disarm and demobilize combatants were about to bear fruit in Burundi.

“I join the rest of the world in hoping and praying for an end to the death and destruction in Burundi,” Secretary Albert said. END.