Two students at a Seventh-day Adventist school in South Sudan were killed, and six more injured, in a lightning storm June 27 that struck through the campus electrical system into the dormitory, according to Beat Odermatt, president of the Adventist Church in the region.

The tragedy, which hit at the beginning of exam week, has left many of the students traumatized, says John Silvio, school principal. Lightning struck the electrical wiring of the Eyira Adventist Vocational Academy campus and entered the students’ living quarters. A student missionary from Southern Adventist University with two years of nurse’s training administered first aid to the injured students. One survivor was taken to a hospital in Maridi, 45 kilometers from the school. The strike appears to have completely destroyed all the wiring on the campus and ruined the generator.

“All the survivors of the lightning strike are doing well,” reports Odermatt. The school will be closed for two weeks to allow students to visit their families—lack of communication in this war-torn country has parents concerned about their children, he says. Mid-term examinations will be administered in mid-July after staff and students have had time to recover emotionally.

“I am optimistic that the school will recover from this setback,” says Odermatt. “The Adventist Church will continue to be a leader in the education of the youth of South Sudan.”

EAVA was established six years ago in Western Equitoria Province, about 200 kilometers north of the border between Sudan and Uganda. School administrators say the campus was literally “hacked out of the bush” on a large tract of land donated by local chiefs. It has 200 boarding students and a staff of 20. It is one of less than 10 secondary schools in the area, which serve a population of 6 million. School sponsorship by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International ends in 2003, and plans are being developed for the school to become self-sustaining through industries and farming. Odermatt and Carl Koester, secretary and treasurer of the church in South Sudan, are traveling to EAVA to meet with the staff and convene a school board and regional executive committee to determine how to best move forward in the continued development of the school.

Since 1983, Sudan has been torn by civil war between the Muslim north and the animist and Christian south. At least 2 million people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the conflict, according to reports from the region. There is a small Adventist community in South Sudan; a census, completed June 1, shows a membership of just over 5,020.