An 83-year-old Roman-Catholic nun, Sister Suellen Tennyson, has been freed from her five month abduction in the African country of Burkina Faso.
The news was announced Wednesday by Theophile Nare, the bishop of the local diocese of Kaya, Burkina Faso.
Bishop Nare said she was at a safe place and her health was good.
According to Timothy Pietrack, a US Africa Command spokesman, US Africa Command military personnel “facilitated the safe turnover,” from the terrorists.
Sister Suellen, a missionary nun from New Orleans, was kidnapped from her bed by a group of ten armed men in April. She was living at the residence with two other nuns and two African women.
She was kidnapped in the middle of the night, while sleeping, and was not able to take her eyeglasses or essential blood pressure medication with her.
Since 2014, she made it her life’s work to help malnourished children in Burkina Faso, even though violence there was getting worse and she was advised to leave the country. Violent groups, many with links to al Qaeda and the Islamic State, have taken territory in Burkina Faso, and attacks on the army and civilians are common.
Her order, the Marinates of Holy Cross, released a letter saying that the Sister was found alive and is secure and being cared for by US officials. She is now in Niger, about 160 miles from Yalgo, Burkina Faso, where she was kidnapped.
The details of her rescue were not released.
The leader of her order, Sister Ann Lacour, said the nun was, not surprisingly, exhausted from her experience.
“I told her how much people love her, and she doesn’t have anything to worry about. I told her, ‘You are alive and safe. That’s all that matters,’” Lacour told the newspaper, the Clarion Herald, which is associated with the Archdiocese of New Orleans.