A South Sudanese Comboni Missionary Fr Hector Ayon Oyamute on Sunday afternoon passed away in Juba at the age of 71 years after a long illness.
Fr Ayon was born in Chukudum village of Eastern Equatoria State in 1944, baptized three years after birth and joined the Comboni Missionaries as a young man for basic initial formation and training to become a priest.
He went to Italy in 1963 for Novitiate formative period and there he took the first vows as a Religious in the Institute of the Comboni Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Holy Father Pope Paul the VI ordained Fr Ayon a priest on May 17, 1970 on Pentecostal Sunday.
The late priest returned to South Sudan to work in the local missions shortly after his ordination.
Late Fr Ayon also worked in Uganda’s Karamoja Mission, then in his native Chukudum as parish priest, in Juba, Yirol and Mapuordit.
On Monday, the body of the deceased priest has been taken to his ancestral homeland of Chukudum for burial.