El Salvador’s Duarte Given Last Rites as Cancer Takes its Toll

Former Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte was given last rites today in the gravest crisis of his 18-month battle against terminal cancer, relatives and his physician said.

“It’s a really difficult situation,” Dr. Jose Luis Saca said. “He’s dying.”

Saca said Duarte’s stomach and liver cancer, first diagnosed in June, 1988, had spread throughout the abdominal cavity. He said the 64-year-old former president was in a “stupor,” only waking when stimulated by doctors.

Family members said a Roman Catholic priest had given Duarte the last rites, a sacrament administered shortly before death.

The former president was given the last rites during a severe relapse in September, but he later recovered. At that time Saca said Duarte appeared to have “more lives than a cat.”