By Japanese in Solomons

Catholic Missionaries Murdered By Japanese in Solomons

ANOTHER murder by Japanese in the South Pacific area was officially reported on October 14.

Four Roman Catholic missionaries of the Marist Order, who had been sta tioned for many years at the Marist Mis sion at Ruacatu, in Guadalcanal, in the British Solmon Islands, were killed by the Japanese, by being bayoneted in the throat, and their bodies have been found at a place called Tasimbok, in Guadal canal. Their names are: — Father Henry Engberink. a Dutch man who had been in the Solomons for three years.

Father Arthur Dubanel, an Ameri can, who had been in the Solomons for two years.

Sister Sylvia, who had worked among the natives of the Solomons for 20 years. She was a native of Alsace-Lorraine, France.

Sister Odilya, also a native of Alsace-Lorraine, who had been a missionary in the Solomons for eight years.

A third nun, Sister Edmet, also of Alsace-Lorraine, France, who has been

a missionary in the Solomons for 30 years, was taken by the Japanese, but somehow contrived to escape.

News of these murders, as well as the report that certain Anglican missionaries have been killed as the result of war operations on the north-east coast of Papua (see report elsewhere) came as a sickening shock to the missionary bodies in Australia. Wherever possible, mis sionary headquarters had withdrawn per sonnel from areas actually within the fighting zones; but in many cases the missionaries of all denominations refused to leave the natives to whose welfare and education they had devoted their lives.

They had believed that even among Japanese there would be sufficient of the feelings of our common humanity to accept the fact that Christian mission aries are strictly non-belligerent. Mis sionaries have believed that, even if they were placed under strict surveillance, they would not be injured by the enemy.