In her first public comments since kidnappers freed her, Sister Suellen Tennyson told the Clarion Herald on Tuesday about the torment and isolation she faced during almost five months of captivity in west Africa - and the elation she felt upon her sudden release.
Speaking from an unidentified "safe haven" in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, where she arrived Aug. 31, the 83-year-old Marianite nun said she was grateful for her generally safe treatment while a hostage and the thousands of people who prayed and worked for her release.
“That’s what I want to say: ‘Thank you to all these people,’” the Kenner native told the Clarion Herald, the archdiocese's newspaper. “I am truly humbled by all of this. And the only way I can say thank you is ‘thank you.’ My heart is filled with gratitude.”
An undated shows from left, Sister Suellen Tennyson with Sister Pascaline Tougma, a midwife from Burkina Faso, and Sister Pauline Drouin, a nurse from Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Tennyson was taken from her bed in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, late Monday, April 4, 2022, said Sister Ann Lacour, U.S. congregational leader for the Marianites of Holy Cross in Covington.
Tennyson was snatched from her bed on April 4, when 10 armed men raided the missionary home she shared in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, with two other nuns. She told the Clarion Herald she was blindfolded, gagged, put on the back of a motorcycle and driven all through the night and into the early morning.
Barefoot and without her medications and eyeglasses, Tennyson was then turned over to a second group, captors who she said washed her feet, fed her sardines, rice, spaghetti and coffee, and gave her a pen and paper to help track her days. They treated her reasonably well, she said.
The Marianites of Holy Cross worked with the FBI and other federal agencies to find her, but the order never had information on her whereabouts. Tennyson told the Clarion Herald she didn't know where she was either.
She said she mostly slept on the ground outside or on the floor, contracted malaria and lost 20 pounds during her captivity. Prayer, she said, and her faith sustained her.
Sudden freedom
Tennyson was released Aug. 29 in Niger, about 200 miles east of Yalgo. A U.S. official told CNN that terrorists handed Tennyson to Nigeriens, who then turned her over to U.S. officials. A defense official told CBS that the U.S. military sent a vehicle to pick up Tennyson and flew her out of a base in Niger.
The circumstances surrounding her release are still largely a mystery. She signed a privacy agreement with the FBI, the Archdiocese of New Orleans said.
Sister Ann Lacour, U.S. congregational leader for Tennyson's order, said such agreements forbid federal officials to share information about specific cases and are offered to victims who are held hostage for ransom. Lacour said money was not exchanged for Tennyson's release. FBI negotiation specialists previously encouraged the Marianites to keep Tennyson's abduction out of the headlines, fearing that global outrage would provide leverage for kidnappers to demand a steep price for her release.
Turmoil in Burkina Faso
After a long career that included school positions in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and serving as the superior general for the worldwide Marianite order, Tennyson found a calling in ministering to malnourished children in Burkina Faso. Bishop Thomas Kabore invited Marianite nuns in 2014 to help run the newly built Blessed John Paul II Center.
Violence intensified in Burkina Faso over the past few years, however, and the Marianites encouraged Tennyson to come home. She wanted to stay.
Her abduction made global news, and people near and far rejoiced the week of her release.
"We are deeply grateful to God, and to the women and men who made this possible," Archbishop Gregory Aymond said. "The safe return of Sister Suellen Tennyson ... is an answer to our most heartfelt prayers. We thank God that she is safe and that she has been returned to the care of those that love her."
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