19 Missionaries Murdered By Congolese Troops

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29725, 19 January 1962, Page 13

19 Missionaries Murdered By Congolese Troops

(N Z.P .A.-Reuter—Copyright) LEOPOLDVILLE, January 18. Nineteen Roman Catholic missionaries have been murdered by lawless Congolese soldiers. The massacre occurred in Northern Katanga on New Year’s Day, and has now been reported to the United Nations by a survivor who escaped into bush.

The survivor who gave the account said the missionaries were arrested at a seminary in Kongolo on New Year's Eve by reportedly proGizenga soldiers who accused them of poisoning the minds of local people. They were flogged, and then lined up and shot in front of nuns and seminary studen’s. The bodies were then mutilated by Congolese youths and thrown into a river. Most of the priests who died were Belgians, but they included at least one young German and some Dutchmen Some reports said parts of the mutilated bodies were eaten. The United Nations sp kesman in Leopoldville said it wa= hoped General Victor Lundula. the Congolese Army commander in Orientale and Kivu provinces, con'd investigate. Ute seminary is one of the largest in the Congo. A sookesman of the order, the Missionaries of the Ho'y Ghost, said in Brazzaville that never in the 120 years of the order had such an odious crime been committed against it. U.N. Troops Distant United Nations officials have been able to do lit’le for they have no representative near there and their

nearest troops are about 150 miles away. The Soldiers are thought in Leopoldville to be those who killed 13 Italian airmen in Kivu province in November In the Vatican. Pope John received the news with profound sorrow. The British United Press reported that, deeply moved, the Pope likened the massacre to Cain’s slaying of Abel. Speaking to pilgrims at his usual weekly audience yesterday, the Pope said: “News has reached here of what occurred to missionaries who were in Africa. About a score of them have been killed. ’The sons of Adam were two —Cain and Abel. In today’s events we have merely a repetition of the beginnings of the human community—brothers slaying brothers.”

A teen-age seminarist yesterday described how a group of terrified school children at the Kongolo mission school were told by the Congolese soldiers: "Now you will see how we are going to kill your priests,” the Associated Press reported.

The teen-ager told how the priests shouted ‘Pray for us" as they advanced into the machine-guns of the soldiers during the massacre. President Tshombe of Katanga gave a news conference in Elisabethville yesterday at which he described the happenings at Kongolo as “an expression of collective madness.”

"Words are insufficient to describe the crimes committed by armed A.N.C. (Congo National Army) bands on Katanga soil,” he said.