Missionary expelled

A French Canadian Catholic missionary has been deported from the Sudan. Fr John Binnette, from the Society of Foreign Missions of the province of Quebec (PME), was told by the Interior Ministry that his permit to stay in the country had been revoked and that he had to leave the country for "security reasons". Fr Binnette, who heads the national office of the Pontifical Missionary Society within the Sudanese Bishops Conference, was given one week to leave the country. He is the second Canadian missionary to be expelled by the Islamic Government of Khartoum in the past year. In 1999, Fr Gilles Poirier was deported. Aid workers in the country fear that many other foreign workers and missionaries in the Sudan could be asked to leave within the next few months.