Shot Belfast Missionary Forgives Gunmen

There is only one word a Belfast missionary priest has for the men who nearly killed him in South Africa: forgiveness.

Father Kieran Creagh wishes to meet and forgive the robbers who shot him twice at the hospice he founded to help Aids sufferers in Pretoria.

In February, surgeons had to remove one of the bullets from his lung following the shooting.

He is currently back in Belfast to visit his family and to recover over the next few months.

He said: "I don't hold it against them - I forgive them.

"I would just like to meet them. I believe that two of them have been arrested, so hopefully they will get them all.

"Just so that they don't do it to anyone else.

"I would like to say that to them - you don't need to shoot people. Why did you rob?

"I think there is a big problem in South Africa at the moment. There is a lot of violent
crime - it's dreadful."

Fr Creagh has no immediate plans to return to South Africa and will stay in Belfast to recuperate before travelling around Ireland.

He was the first person in Africa to be injected with a trial HIV vaccine, was made Irish International Personality of the Year in 2004. He had volunteered to try out the vaccine, despite being free from the virus himself.

Fr Creagh has worked with Aids patients in the country for a decade and opened the Leratong hospice in 2004.