Southland Church Worker Attacked in El Salvador

A Roman Catholic priest said a Southern California church worker helping refugees in El Salvador was attacked Sunday by assailants believed to be members of a death squad.

Father Michael Kennedy of Our Lady of Queen of Angels Church said it was believed to be the first attack on an American church worker in the civil war-torn country since three Catholic nuns and a Catholic lay worker were raped and slain in 1982.

Francisco Herrera, 25, of Calexico, told Kennedy he was transporting a group of Salvadoran refugees to a hospital, when “an unmarked truck forced him off the side of the road, and a group of men immediately pulled him out of the truck and started hitting him over the head with rifles.”

Kennedy said the men told Herrera: “‘This is the last warning. If we ever catch any church worker driving people like this again, you will be immediately killed.”’

“He’s convinced they were death squad members,” Kennedy said. “He’s very shaken up. He was convinced he was going to die. What saved him was being an American.”