A wounded 77-year-old Christian missionary is set to return to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this week for the last time.
Maud Kells was shot twice and critically injured by bandits in the town of Mulita, north-east DRC, last January. But after recovering in her homeland of Ireland she returned last September to fight for the three men charged with the crime, who she said were innocent.
"It's all bribery and corruption out there," she told Christian Today at the time.
"I've had to pay quite a lot of money to try and get the men out. I tried to find out why my night guard was in prison and was told it was because he had not tried to stop the bandits from shooting me. But there is no way that he could have prevented them.
"I've known these men for all these years.
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"I know them inside out and I just know that they wouldn't do anything like that. They were always very supportive in protecting me in the past."
Kells was lured out of her house by a man pretending to be the husband of an ill patient. When she returned she was shot by two bandits.
She has worked as a medical missionary in DRC since 1968, intially serving as a nurse. She has since trained Congolese nurses in five hospitals and 30 health centres and received an OBE for her tireless work.
But now she has said this next trip will be her last.
"I feel, at my age, that it's maybe time to give up. I'm just not as healthy as I was," she told the BBC's Evening Extra programme.
"I feel it's God's time to say goodbye. It could go on for ever and ever but you've got to draw a line somewhere," she added.
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