OWN CORRESPONDENT, Luanda | Wednesday
ANGOLAN rebels abducted 60 children in a fierce weekend attack on a town near the capital to use them as “political hostages”, a UN special adviser on African affairs said on Tuesday in Luanda.
Ibrahim Gambari, adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said: “Taking hostages for political ends is a totally negative development.”
He was speaking to journalists after talks with Angolan Justice Minister Paulo Tchipilika.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called separately on Tuesday for the immediate release of the children, who disappeared when the rebels attacked the town of Caxito, just 60km from Luanda, on Saturday.
The rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) killed about 100 people, mainly civilians, in the attack, while 100 others went missing, state television said on Monday.
Gambari, who arrived in Angola on Sunday, said that such “attacks will only complicate the situation. They don’t help the peace process. They will have to end.”
The kidnapped children, aged between 10 and 18, included nine girls and 51 boys. They were taken from Children’s Town, a home for more than 100 children run by a non-governmental organisation outside Caxito.
One Angolan teacher was also abducted, the United Nations said.
“The current welfare and whereabouts of the children and their teacher is unknown,” UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a joint statement.
UNICEF also condemned the killing of four humanitarian workers and a number of civilians in the same attack near the town of Caxito at the weekend.
The four humanitarian workers included an Angolan doctor working with an Italian non-governmental organisation (NGO) and three Angolan staff members – two teachers and a support worker for a local NGO, People’s Aid for the People.
The UN agencies noted that some children had died after two mass abductions in Angola last year. Children kidnapped in conflict regions are often used to carry goods or ammunition, or forced to cook and clean, they said.
In the worst cases, girls may be sexually abused, or both boys and girls may be forced to fight as soldiers or used as defensive shields.
Gambari, who was in Angola to assess the political, military and humanitarian situation, has had talks with Foreign Minister Joao Miranda and Interior Minister Fernando da Piedade.
Angola’s civil war has raged almost non-stop since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.
The conflict has claimed at least 500 000 lives and has displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12 million. – AFP
ZA*NOW:
Unita kidnaps 60 Angolan kids May 8, 2001
Unita moves to offensive: 100 dead May 8, 2001
08