WORLD : American Nun Shot in El Salvador
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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — An American nun was shot in the head and critically wounded by an assailant who fired into her pickup truck as she drove outside the capital, hospital and church sources said today.
The sources said Sister Mary McKay, 72, was wounded Wednesday night as she traveled with two other people from the capital to Zaragoza, 10 miles to the south. The attacker has not been identified.
Some Salvadoran armed forces officers consider nuns, priests and other church people who work in poor communities sympathizers with leftist guerrillas battling the U.S.-backed government.
The nun, a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, helps care for orphans at the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Community in Zaragoza.
In December, 1980, four U.S. nuns were killed by National Guard troops in El Salvador. The case led to a temporary suspension of U.S. aid to this country, in the throes of a 9-year-old civil war.
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