1.   Its ranks were thinned this year when three nuns died.

2.   The fourth nun died Sunday.

3.   The Nobel laureate nun died earlier this year.

4.   The Roman Catholic nun died of a heart attack Friday in her world-renowned charity mission for the poor in Calcutta, India.

5.   An Italian nun died from the disease in Kikwit Sunday -- the sixth from her community to succomb to the disease.

6.   Five nuns died a month after the protests due to severe physical abuse, it added.

7.   Two Rwandan nuns died Wednesday in a mine explosion in the northwest of the country.