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MADRID, April 13 (AFP) - A Spanish diplomat has been sacked for telling a nun in war-torn Rwanda that the foreign ministry "was not there to save nuns lost in the jungle", official sources here said Wednesday.
In her complaint against the diplomat, Alvaro Ozores Salavierra, a duty officer at the foreign ministry, Sister Dolores Garcia, a member of the Order of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, said he had made the remark on Sunday when she rang requesting urgent assistance for Spanish nuns in Rwanda.
In a letter to his superiors, Salavierra apologised and said he had made the remark when tired out by the number of telephone calls he had received.
Meanwhile, Ubaldina Martinez, one of three evacuated Spanish nuns who arrived in Madrid Tuesday, criticised the lack of assistance from the Spanish embassy in Nairobi during the nuns' passage through the Kenyan capital on their way from Rwanda.
The Spanish foreign ministry said it had made arrangements for officials to be available at Nairobi airport, but that officials from countries which were not involved in organising the evacuations had found it very difficult to gain access to the evacuees.
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