N.Z. Missionary Killed By Balubas In Congo

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29379, 5 December 1960, Page 11

N.Z. Missionary Killed By Balubas In Congo

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) ELISABETHVILLE (Katanga), December 3. Two evangelical missionaries—one a Briton and the other a New Zealander—were hacked to death by Baluba tribesmen in north Katanga last week, it was announced in Elisabethville last night. The missionaries ’ were Elton George Behrent Knauf, aged 50, whose home town is New Plymouth, New Zealand, and Edmund Hodgson, aged 62, whose home is Blackpool, Lancashire. Mr Knauf was married, with three children. His wife. Gwen, and children have travelled to Kitwe, Northern Rhodesia, where they are staying with friends. Mr Hodgson was a widower. Both men had been in Katanga for many years and were em-

ployed by the Congo Evangelistic Mission. They were first reported missing on November 23, after having left to make a routine visit to an outlying mission two days earlier. The British consulate in Elisabethville asked the United Nations to search for the men. Irish and Ethiopian patrols aided by a helicopter have been sweeping the dense bush country of north Katanga ever since. A helicopter crew eventually came up with the evidence of the murders when they obtained eyewitness accounts from tribesmen in a swampy area north of the township of Kabalo. The tribesmen said that the missionaries were hacked to death with machetes near the tiny settlement of Mukraya, about 150 miles from Albertville, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. According to the Press Association, Mr Knauf has been engaged in missionary work in the Congo for about 24 years. He returned to New Zealand after nine years in the area and married Miss Gwendoline Scadden, of New Plymouth. On their return to the Congo, Mrs Knauf also took an active part in the work of the mission.

Regarded as one of the key men of the Congo Evangelistic Mission, which draws its members from many countries, Mr Knauf was also an official missionary of the Assemblies of God in New Zealand, which gave him its support during all his years of service in the Congo.

Proficient in the Baluba language, Mr .Knauf was stationed in the tribal area, but his children have been attending a private school at Sakeji, Rhodesia. Letters to relatives in Taranaki indicated that Mr Knauf feared a tragedy. He was trying to arrange a passage back to New Zealand. Earlier letters said he would have to wait four years, but a letter received by his mother, Mrs George Knauf, of Auckland, only four days ago. said: “I am definitely coming out.”