Late William Kak Adorwin Courtesy

A renowned catechist and Anyanya war veteran who helped with the establishment of several religious schools in Sudan during the civil war has died.

William Kak Adorwin died at the age of 90 in a Juba Hospital on Thursday. 

He is credited for providing education for thousands of children of those displaced from then-Southern Sudan.

The late joined the Anyanya One movement in 1955 as an active member. 

After the signing of the Addis Ababa agreement in 1972, he refused to be integrated into the armed forces and preferred to work with the civil society in Sudan. 

During the second civil war in 1983, he helped in the founding of the Catholic Comboni churches and schools in Hajj Youssef area on the eastern Nile of Khartoum.

Thousands of children of South Sudan origin enrolled in these schools.

Since the signing of the comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 to the independence of South Sudan, and the subsequent eruption of violence in 2013, the late is said to have advocated for peaceful coexistence among communities of Upper Nile state.

His son said the old man died of a cardiac arrest at Juba Medical Complex on 11 February 2021.

“William Kak is an easy going old man, he always worked with the youth –encouraging people to choose education and peace,” Youhanes William Kak told Eye Radio.

At the height of the conflict in 2014, during the attacks on Malakal town, late Kak Adorwin was among those who escaped persecution by sheltering at the Catholic church in the town.

“They started killing and looting everything even killing innocent people, small children…so we said let us run to the church and be there, and if we get killed, it will be in a place of blessings,” said William Kak.

The late William Kak Adorwin was born on January 1st, 1931. 

He will be buried in his birth village of Wadbajok.