A nun linked to allegations of abuse at the Lourdes Home orphanage in Gozo decades ago died on Tuesday.

Mother Superior Carmelita Borg’s death was announced by the Santwarju Madonna ta’ Pompej Facebook page.

The Mother Superior for the Dominican nuns was responsible for the Lourdes Home orphanage in Għajnsielem where alleged abused took place.

Borg was responsible for the Lourdes Home orphanage during the 1970s and 1980s, with victims accusing her of turning a blind eye to the abuse they suffered.

Earlier this month, two women who had lived at the home decades ago, described harrowing experiences of sexual abuse by clergy and savage beatings from nuns in court.

The two women testified in a Constitutional case against the State presided over by Judge Mark Simiana, in which they claim the State had done nothing to safeguard their rights or care at the orphanage.

The women Rosanne Saliba and Carmen Muscat, gave her account of a number of shocking incidents from their childhood at the institute. 

In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday last year, Saliba had said she and others in 2021 wrote to Pope Francis to “outline some of the horrendous acts which were inflicted upon some of the unfortunate orphans”.

Like some other children present at the home with her, Saliba said she was also physically abused. “I endured beatings, penances, a very inhumane and severe discipline,” she said.

“In 2006, with some pressure from other orphans who had stayed at the Home, then Gozo Bishop Mario Grech decided to take us seriously and opened an inquiry,” she said.

Bishop Grech had appointed a Commission to investigate allegations of physical and psychological abuse of underage children in Church homes in Gozo.

This was the second Commission that had looked into the issue. The first Commission had been set up by former Bishop Nikol Cauchi in 1999, but an article about the summary of that report published by The Malta Independent on Sunday in April 2006 read that the panel concluded that some punishments meted out at the Home, including corporal punishment, might seem to be too drastic at the time the report was drawn up, but when they had happened, such action was common not just in children’s homes, but also in family homes both in Malta and abroad.

The second Commission, appointed by Bishop Grech, was comprised of Judge Victor Caruana Colombo as chairman, lawyer Dr Ruth Farrugia, psychologist Dr Angela Abela and Mgr Fortunato Mizzi. In April of 2008, Bishop Grech asked for forgiveness from the children who had made the allegations of abuse, after the second Commission investigating the claims found that “inadmissible behaviour involving minors” had taken place.

The statement had not specified what was described as “inadmissible behaviour”.

Bishop Grech praised the work of the sisters “done with great love and dedication – during its long history of hundreds of children and their families”. However, the bishop asked for forgiveness from all those “who have suffered because of this behaviour... I must show my sorrow for all that was of detriment to these children”.

The Home was closed in 2008.