'More Congo Deaths'

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 17

' More Congo Deaths '

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LEOPOLDVILLE, Dec. 21 Missionaries and nuns arriving here from Congo mission stations said yesterday they feared 24 white missionaries and six children may have been killed by Congolese

insurgents. One of those believed killed is an Australian, Miss Laurel McCullem, who was understood to have been at the mission at Bafwasende. Bafwasende mission station is about 170 miles east of Stanleyville. Others believed to have died include 15 Britons—three men, six women and six children—eight Dutch priests, three Belgian nuns and a Belgian priest, an American and a Canadian. Earlier, English missionary officials had believed there were seven Italian priests instead of the eight Dutch priests. Fears of the killings were expressed by three missionaries, Miss Louis Rimmer and Miss Olive McCarton, of London, and Mrs Dolena Burke, of Calgary, Canada, and also by 11 Italian nuns flown from Stanleyville after being evacuated from Baf wsande by mercenary forces yesterday. The missionaries and the nuns expressed the belief that 16 of the people believed killed were at the Banalia mission, north of Stanleyville, and the remainder at the Bafwasende mission.

The three missionaries said white mercenaries led by Major Michael Hoare found indications that 16 missionaries at Banalia were killed

just before they got there. The station was deserted. Mrs Burke told reporters she heard shots as she and others were marched naked from the house where they were held at Bafwasende, and she had no hope her husband and 12 other missionaries held at Bafwasende were still alive.

But the three said they could not confirm any deaths, as they “did not see executions or the dead bodies.” Mrs Burke said most of the missionaries at Bafwasende were taken there when the insurgents heard of the paratroop drop at Stanleyville.

“They were told that the city was bombed by American bombers and they believed it,” she said. “They herded us together from the outlying region and kept us there.”

A few days later, on November 28, she said, planes bombed the area “and that’s when the rebels got very nasty with us. We were marched out in the nude from the house we were all kept in. “But suddenly the rebels changed their minds, and made three of us and the 11 Italian nuns turn back . . . the others were taken down the road.”

She said one volley of shots followed.

“I don’t believe they could have all been shot then, but I do believe they were killed then,” she said. Protected by Officers

She said insurgent officers, who later protected missionaries from their troops, told her that 13 missionaries were

being hidden in the bush. Asked if she thought her husband and the others had been killed, Mrs Burke said: “I think so. I have no hope they are still alive.”

“A rebel carrying a note saying the mercenaries were coming and that we should all be shot was caught by the mercenaries just before he reached Bafwasende and was killed,” Miss Rimmer said.

She said the mercenary force of about 40 men under Major Hoare surprised the insurgents and they fled. The missionaries were then taken by helicopter to Stanleyville, about 170 miles to the west. Clothes Found The missionaries who said Hoare's men had found indications that the Banalia missionaries were killed just before the force got there said three nuns’ habits and the clothes of a priest and of European children were found on the edge of a river. An Italian, Sister Argia Tiberi, of the Euore Adoratrici Della Preziosissima Sangue (Adorers of the Most Precious Blood) told how the Simbas tried to undress the nuns.

“We clung together in a mass,” she said. “We told the Simbas: kill us rather than undress us.

•They tried to separate the nursing nuns from the teachers ’* she added. The four nursing sisters said: Kill us all.”

Sister Argia said the Simbas told them they wanted nurses to look after their sick and wounded.

“They beat us, they wounded us, they did anything they wanted,” she said ,