GILBERTO NETO, Luanda | Monday
THE death toll from an attack on a passenger train in Angola has risen to close to 100, state-run radio reported on Sunday.
Radio Nacional, quoting government and military sources, said the Friday attack 150km southeast of Luanda had also injured around 120 people.
The train hit a landmine laid on the track and was then attacked by gunmen who the government said belonged to the Unita rebel movement. Unita representatives could not immediately be reached to respond to the allegation.
If confirmed, the attack would rate as one of the bloodiest ever carried out by Unita against civilians in its almost three-decade-long civil war with Luanda.
Survivors said in a Luanda hospital that they did not know if the attackers were from Unita or not. They said some had been wearing military uniforms while others wore civilian clothes.
“I didn’t know what was going on. Suddenly there was shooting everywhere and there was fire around the train. My friends and I tried to escape,” said 18-year-old Domingos Antonio from his hospital bed.
“I saw how one of them was shot while trying to jump out of the train,” he said. Antonio was being treated for burns and a gunshot wound to his arm.
“There was shooting and I tried to grab my daughter but there were more shots and I thought she was dead. Then she screamed ‘mommy I’m not dead’ and I managed to pick her up,” said one woman who was shot in the leg. He said the train had kept moving after the mine exploded beneath it but the attackers had then shot at the train and killed the driver.
He and other survivors said the gunmen had started fires around the derailed train and shot screaming passengers as they tried to escape. Many passengers also perished in the flames.
“There was shooting and I tried to grab my daughter but there were more shots and I thought she was dead. Then she screamed ‘mommy I’m not dead’ and I managed to pick her up,” said one woman who was shot in the leg.
She said that she had lost all her money in the attack and was now destitute.
Civilians often bear the brunt of the war which has killed around one million people and displaced millions more, making Angola one of the poorest countries on earth despite its big oil and diamond reserves and huge agricultural potential.
The government said on Saturday 17 people had been killed in the incident. The radio said troops and rescue workers in the area had since searched the surrounding bush and found more bodies.
Namibian President Sam Nujoma said at the start of a regional summit in Malawi on Sunday that the 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community would push for a tightening of sanctions against Unita.
Existing sanctions have targeted its sales of illicit diamonds, which fund its purchase of weapons and other goods. The government’s war effort is bankrolled by oil. – Reuters
ZA*NOW:
Warring parties forsake Angolan people, say doctors July 4, 2001
Unita attacks defy progress on peace May 14, 2001