Missionary lost in Peruvian jungle

Dense jungle in Peru

A Vincentian missionary has been missing in the Peruvian jungle for more than two weeks. Father Alfonso Asencios Zuloaga was last seen on 23 November, after he had celebrated Mass and baptised a group of children and adults in a remote community.

He decided to walk back through the jungle to his parish house because a landslide had damaged part of the road. The Vincentians said this was a route he knew well. The walk from Banda de Shilcayo to Santa Elena should have taken about six hours. When Fr Alphonso didn't arrive home, his Vincentian brothers, Father Adolfo Salazar Julca and Father Eduardo Mendoza Garcia, put out an alarm and the search began.

More than 80 volunteers, including the Missionaries of Jesus in Chazuta and other friends are searching for him. But in a statement released by the press office of the Archdiocese of Lima, the Provincial Superior of the Vincentians in Peru, Fr Ruben Pedro Borda, said that he has still not been found.

The local Bishop of the Prelature, Mgr Rafael Escudero Lapez-Brea, and Fr Borda have now formally appealed to the army for help.

Source: Fides