Last Survivor of Tibhirine Monastery Attack Recovers from COVID-19 at 97

The former Lyon seminarian and two other monks had been affected by Covid-19 in Morocco, reports Le Progrès. They were declared cured after 15 days of hospitalization. The three religious men have returned to the Notre-Dame de l’Atlas monastery located in Midelt.

Brother Jean-Pierre Schumacher had, in 1996, escaped a kidnapping at the Tibhirine monastery in Algeria, which had resulted in the assassination of seven monks. Since the death of Brother Amédée in 2008, he is the last survivor of this kidnapping that occurred during the Algerian civil war.

During his apostolic visit to Morocco on March 30 and 31, 2019, Pope Francis had met him. The declaration of beatification of the seven martyrs of Tibhirine was effective on December 8, 2019, during a solemn Eucharistic ceremony at the Santa Cruz sanctuary in Oran.