The evening before World Refugee Day Father Frido Pflüger SJ died of corona in Kampala/Uganda. He was an educator, headmaster, friend and companion of refugees in Africa and Germany.

Frido Pflüger SJ was born on 18 February 1947 in Albbruck in the district of Waldshut and entered the Jesuit Order on 13 June 1966 after graduating from high school. He studied philosophy and theology in Pullach, Innsbruck and Tübingen. From 1971 to 1973 he was an educator and mathematics teacher at the College of St. Blasien in the Black Forest. He was ordained a priest in Munich on 2 October 1976. From 1975 to 1981 he completed a second degree in mathematics and physics in Tübingen and was then a teacher of mathematics, physics and astronomy at the Jesuit College in St. Blasien.

During tertianship in the Philippines in 1986/87 he worked for the first time for three months with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). In the Bataan camp, where Vietnamese boat people were housed at the time, he learned what it meant to accompany people. From 1988 onwards, he was deputy headmaster at the College of St. Blasien. From August 1992, he helped rebuild the Catholic St. Benno Grammar School in Dresden, of which he became headmaster in 1994 and remained until 2003. From 2003 to 2006 he went for JRS to Adjumani, Northern Uganda, where 100,000 refugees from Southern Sudan were stranded at the time. From 2006 to 2008 he was delegate of the German Provincial for Ignatian Pedagogy. He then went to Nairobi/Kenya and led JRS East Africa as Regional Director from 2008 to 2012, after returning to Germany he was Head of JRS Germany in Berlin from 2012 to 2018. In 2018, he went back to Africa and worked as Country Director for JRS in Uganda.

The last year and a half during the Corona pandemic was particularly challenging for him. His return to Germany was planned, he had booked a flight to Berlin for 18 July. Due to a COVID-19 infection, he had to be treated in hospital in Kampala since 15 June. Now the Lord has called him to his eternal home on the eve of the World Refugee Day.

Frido Pflüger SJ was buried on 22 June 2021 in a moving ceremony at St Peter's Parish in Nsambya near Xavier House in Kampala/Uganda. The ceremony was livestreamed. Memorial services were held in various places (Berlin, Dresden, Munich, St. Blasien). A digital book of condolence on the homepage of the Dresden St. Benno Grammar School offers the opportunity to share memories, prayers and wishes for Fr Pflüger.