Luanda | Thursday
FIVE people, including three students, were killed and four were wounded in an attack by Angolan rebels on a school outside the town of Benguela, the state-run Jornal de Angola reported on Wednesday.
Two other girls were kidnapped on Tuesday from the school run by the Humana People to People aid agency, the paper said, without stating whether they were students.
Meanwhile, five people were killed and two were hurt in another rebel attack in Sanjimbi, in the southern province of Bie, the paper said. Other attacks were reported in the villages of Candudo, Mangua and Uyue in Bie Province.
Police also announced Wednesday in Luanda that the bodies of 141 victims of a massive attack last month on a passenger train have been exhumed so that they can be ”buried with dignity,” following a government order.
The August 10 attack on a train 200 kilometres outside Luanda killed 261 people and wounded more than 100, according to a provisional toll compiled from Angola’s media.
The train was carrying 500 passengers and fuel to Cuanza-Norte Province when it hit a landmine that had been laid on the tracks.
The government and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) have battled almost non-stop for 26 years. A full-scale war resumed in 1998 after the collapse of a 1994 peace accord.
The war has claimed at least 500 000 lives and displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12-million, most of whom now depend on international aid to survive. – Sapa
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