The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, posthumously, to Antonio César Fernández, a Spanish Salesian missionary killed in 2019 by a jihadist group in Burkina Faso.
Born in July 1946 in Pozoblanco (Córdoba), the missionary was killed in February 2019 during an attack attributed to jihadists in the province of Boulgou, 40 kilometers from the southern border of Burkina Faso. According to the congregation, the priest was attacked while returning to Ouagadougou after participating in a meeting in Lomé, capital of Togo, along with two other religious who survived the assault. Antonio Cesar Fernández had been working in Africa since 1982, when he founded the Salesian presence in Togo, after which he moved to Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. At the time of his death he was living in Ouagadougou, where he worked in a Salesian center for women and children in the neighborhood.
After learning of his murder, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, expressed his “affection for the family and colleagues of the missionary Antonio César Fernández and all the victims of the terrorist attack in Burkina Faso” and expressed his “absolute condemnation of this attack” and his “recognition of the aid workers and volunteers who risk their lives working in conflict zones”. The decoration was authorized last Monday by the Council of Ministers and published yesterday in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
In addition, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has also awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic to Monica Margarit, who served as director general of the Fundació Princesa de Girona (FDdGi) between 2009 and July 2021, when she was relieved by Salvador Tasqué Díez during the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation at the CaixaForum in Barcelona, in the presence of the King and Queen, Princess Leonor and Princess Sofia. At the same meeting, Sílvia Martínez Carnicero was appointed secretary of the entity, replacing Enric Brancós, to whom Albares has also just awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit.
The minister also awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit to Juan Francisco Lazcano Acedo, president of the National Construction Confederation (CNC) until last March, after more than twenty years at the head of the sector’s employers’ association. Lazcano has received numerous decorations and distinctions in recognition of his long career, such as the Encomienda del Mérito Civil, the Medalla de Plata de Galicia, the Medalla de Honor del Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos and the Medalla de Oro de la Asociación Española de la Carretera.
