Faida Alex’s family’s roots are in Burundi, but until late 2012 the 22-year-old had never lived there. In 1972, long before he was born, his
“ ‘We’re the Thomas brothers, and we want to give our farm to the Mennonites,’ ” King recalled hearing. “I just about fell off my chair.”
MCC also is calling on U.S. lawmakers to oppose military intervention in Iraq and instead to send humanitarian aid for the U.N.-estimated 1.9 million internally displaced people, or IDPs, in the country.
She was returning from a regional staff retreat in Spain on May 29 when Israeli authorities detained her at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.
According to an MCC Washington Office report, Friesen was detained for more than 30 hours, which included three sessions of interrogation. She was returned to Barcelona, where she was met by MCC colleagues before making her way back to Canada.
Twenty years ago, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, nearly 2 million people fled into Congo. Most were Rwandan civilians, but some were the soldiers and militiamen . . .
