Hostages kidnapped from Swiss mission in Angola set free
Thirty-four Angolan hostages seized from a Swiss mission station near the town of Ganda, have been set free. Fourteen Angolan missionaries and 20 others were taken hostage last week.
The hostages’ release was announced by the Catholic charity, Caritas Angola, on Tuesday. It is not clear what state the hostages are in, after their week-long ordeal.
They were seized by a group of armed men, who stormed the mission building in the early hours of July 18. The station had been attacked on several occasions but this was the first time hostages had been taken.
The two monks and 12 nuns belonged to the Catholic order, Missionaries of La Salette. Father Emanuel Brülisauer at the mission’s headquarters in St Gallen said the attack was assumed to be the work of the Unita rebels.
The hostages were released on Monday, along with 144 others, who had been kidnapped in other parts of Angola.
The country has been torn apart by a long-running civil war in which the socialist government in Luanda was pitted against rebels led by Jonas Savimbi’s Unita movement.
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