Lisbon | Sunday
AN attack by armed men against a bus carrying about 100 passengers caused an undetermined number of fatalities and left about 12 people injured, Portugal’s Lusa news agency said on Sunday.
The attack took place on Friday near Cacolo, about 30 kilometres from the town of Malange, capital of the province of the same name, east of the capital Luanda. ‘Group of men set fire to the bus and then shot at passengers who tried to escape’ A police source quoted by Lusa said more than 50 people may have been killed in the attack.
Isabel Dora, a survivor who was hospitalised in Malange, told Lusa that the bus was ambushed by a group of armed men who set fire to the vehicle and then shot at passengers who tried to escape. She said many passengers died inside the burning bus.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible.
More than 250 people died on August 10 when a passenger train was attacked after being derailed by an anti-tank mine east of Luanda. The rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) claimed responsibility.
Angola’s 26-year civil war resumed in earnest in 1998 after the collapse of a 1994 peace accord. It has claimed at least 500 000 lives and displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12 million. – AFP