Nuns killed in Algeria

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May 4, 2026

Sister Lourdes Migueles, a Spanish Augustinian nun and trained nurse who has served in Algeria for decades, gives first‑hand recollections. She recounts immersing herself in Algerian life, the rising violence of the early 1990s, the October 1994 shootings that killed two fellow nuns, and the pain of being forced to leave before later returning to rebuild community work.

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ANECDOTE

Becoming Part Of Algerian Life Through Nursing

Sister Lourdes Migueles spent over five decades in Algeria and became fully embedded in local life through nursing and service.
She was the only foreigner in paramedical school, which let her integrate culturally and earn deep appreciation from patients and colleagues.

INSIGHT

Election Cancellation Sparked A Decade Of Violence

The cancellation of Algeria's 1991 elections by the army triggered armed Islamist groups and a decade of violence.
The Islamic Salvation Front's decisive win in the first round provoked the military's intervention that radicalised opponents into attacks on state and civilians.

ANECDOTE

Choosing To Stay With The People During Danger

Despite warnings to leave, Lourdes and her fellow nuns stayed because they felt rooted and welcomed by Algerian communities.
They believed abandoning people in suffering would betray those who had supported them during peaceful times.

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In the early 1990s, Algeria was engulfed by a brutal civil conflict, as armed Islamist groups fought the state and civilians lived in fear. Foreigners were urged to leave, and many did. But Sister Lourdes Migueles, a Spanish Augustinian nun who had already spent decades serving in Algeria, chose to stay.

As the violence worsened, religious figures also became targets. In October 1994, two of Sister Lourdes’s fellow nuns, Caridad Alvarez and Esther Paniagua, were shot dead near their convent as they returned from work. Sister Lourdes remembers hearing the gunshots, the panic in the street, and realising immediately that it was her fellow Sisters who had been attacked. Soon afterwards, she was ordered by her superiors to leave Algeria, something she says caused her deep pain, as though she had abandoned the country she loved.

Years later, she returned to Algiers, where she still lives and works today, helping women and children. Sister Lourdes Migueles tells her story to Colm Flynn.

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(Photo: Nuns attend a ceremony at the Chapel of our Lady of Santa Cruz in Algeria in 2018. Credit: Ryad Kramdi/via Getty)