Child Kidnappings Seen as a Show of Strength by Unita

RELEASED!!

We have just received the first news that the 61 kidnapped children and their 2 teachers are back. More news soon!

May 29th - Free All Children
Sixty Angolan children abducted by UNITA forces earlier this month were freed on Friday, but an unknown number of juveniles remain captives within the rebel movement's ranks, humanitarian officials told IRIN.

The children, along with two adults, were released at Camabatela in the northern province of Kwanza Norte. They had been abducted from an orphanage more than 300 km south run by the development agency ADPP, during an attack on the town of Caxito on 5 May.

ADPP director Rikke Viholm told IRIN the children were "extremely happy" to be reunited with friends and colleagues from the orphanage and, as part of the healing process, had "much to talk about". "Physically, they seem to be in good shape and managed to put up with the 21 days of walking," she added. More

UNICEF Angola & UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Angola Welcome the Release of 60 Abducted Children More

CNN - May 29th - Angolan rebels free 60 Children after 3 weeks in captivity More

May 24th - Orphan kidnapped last year escapes from Angolan rebels: aid agency
An orphan kidnapped in June 2000 by Angola's main rebel group has escaped and managed to make his way to the town of Kuito, the aid agency that was caring for him said Thursday. "We can confirm that the child has arrived in Kuito, but we have not yet had any contact with him," said Rikke Viholm, who heads the Angolan branch of Humana People to People in Huambo, where the child was kidnapped.

The child was among 21 orphans kidnapped last year from an orphanage run by the agency in the town of Huambo, 600 kilometers (360 miles) south of Luanda. Four of the children managed to escape one week after they were captured by rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Viholm said. UNITA rebels kidnapped another 60 orphans May 5 this year from an orphanage also run by an affiliate of Humana in the town of Caxito, only 60 kilometers (35 miles) outside Luanda. None of those orphans have been heard from since their kidnapping. The United Nations has condemned that kidnapping, and the National Childhood Institute late Wednesday launched a petition drive demanding their release. More

Caxito Angola May 14th - Child Kidnappings Seen as a Show of Strength by Unita

Tales of children being rounded up at gunpoint and forced to carry plundered goods into the bush this week formed a stark reminder of the power still wielded by Unita rebels in Angola. The abduction of 60 children from a school compound in Caxito ...less than 80km from the capital, Luanda ... took place on Saturday, after a dawn raid on the town left at least 79 people dead. Some reports put the death toll at more than 100.

On Thursday, aid workers still had no information on the whereabouts of the missing pupils.

Eyewitness accounts received by aid officials and diplomats in the capital suggest that the children were used as porters after the guerrillas seized food and other supplies from the school.

According to one account, the rebels arrived at the school after the slaughter in the town. Unita itself spoke of a two-pronged assault on the town, but it appears that only one of the rebel units arrived at the school premises... a large compound that includes workshops and staff and student accommodation, as well as classrooms. A teacher, aware of the slaughter that had taken place in the town, pleaded for the lives of the children ...whereupon the rebels took the pupils captive.

Previously, Unita fighters have shown no scruples about killing children. An attack on a school in February last year left three children dead, while 17 children are still missing following a second raid in July.

But both those assaults last year took place near the city of Huambo, in the central highland area of Angola traditionally seen as a Unita stronghold. The attack on Caxito has been read as an attempt by Unita to undermine the confidence of the Angolan government by bringing its insurrection closer to the capital.

Also this week, the independent Angolan broadcaster Radio Ecclesia reported two attacks in and around the provincial capital of Uige, about 370km north-east of Luanda, with at least one person killed. Although the Angolan armed forces have in recent years wiped out Unita’s conventional military capability, the rebels still appear effective as a guerrilla force. One Western diplomat in Luanda said the Caxito incident showed that the Angolan army does not currently have the capacity to halt Unita’s guerrilla campaign.

The Angolan government remained bullish about the incident, with President José Eduardo dos Santos saying on Wednesday that the government had a constitutional responsibility not to declare a cease-fire with people whom he described as "armed bandits".

Luanda has long rejected new talks with Unita, on the grounds that the rebel movement chose to go back to war after losing in Angola’s first multi-party elections in 1992. Unita, for its part, has sought to justify its return to arms by asserting that the election results were invalid.

But despite the fighting talk, Western diplomats in Luanda believe that the two sides may be edging towards new negotiations ...though any such talks would still be at least a year away. In this context the attack on Caxito is being seen as a show of strength by Unita in order to scare the government into talks, and to raise the stakes if and when talks do eventually happen.

Unita’s own accounts of the incident are contradictory. On Tuesday the rebel movement’s representative in Portugal, Rui Oliveira, denied that any kidnapping had taken place, saying that Unita members had simply taken the children back to their family homes in rebel-controlled areas.

But Rikke Viholm, chair of the NGO People to People Development Aid, which runs the Caxito school, dismissed this statement as a lie.

She pointed out that the abducted group had included an adult teacher, and that several of the missing children came from families in Luanda who now had no idea where they were. Then on Wednesday, a statement e-mailed to journalists in Lisbon appeared to indicate a change of heart on the part of the rebels. Purporting to come from Unita Chief of Staff General Geraldo Abreu, the statement called for an immediate investigation into the incident at Caxito, and said that if any children had been found to be abducted, then Unita fighters must hand them over to the nearest Catholic mission station.

If the statement is genuine, it could indicate an attempt at political damage-control in the face of the strong condemnation of the abduction by the United Nations Children’s Fund and by the Catholic Church ...a powerful social force in Angola. But so far there is no indication that Unita forces are complying with the order.

Read more:

May 14th - The official statement by ADPP em Angola

May 14th - Child Kidnappings Seen as a Show of Strength by Unita

May 15th - UNHCR Rushes Aid to Caxito's Congolese Refugees
About 60 Angolan children and a teacher were abducted from Children's Town, a home for children run by Danish NGO ADPP, during the same attack. The home is about 10 km outside Caxito. In spite of widespread pleas for their release, none of the children have been seen since the attack. In addition to a number of civilian casualties, four humanitarian workers were killed in the attack - an Angolan doctor working with the Italian organisation COSV, two teachers working for the ADPP and one of their support workers More

May 16th - Unita Pledges to Release Caxito Child Hostages
UNITA has promised to search for and return about 60 children kidnapped by its soldiers during an attack on a children's home in Caxito, about 55 km outside the capital Luanda. Without accepting responsibility for the kidnappings, the rebel movement said in a communiqué released on Tuesday that "the UNITA General Staff has ordered a strict inquiry aimed at identifying children who might have been forced to accompany the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FALA) in the wake of the 5 May 2001 raid ... ". It said the children would be handed over the closest Catholic mission if they were found.

In the same communiqué, the rebel movement issued a stern warning to the Danish aid agency, People to People Development Agency (ADPP). "FALA's General Staff regrets the insulting language used by the director of ADPP [People to People Development Agency] in Luanda, despite the fact that politicised and disciplined guerrillas held a cordial meeting with more than 15 foreigners working for that non-governmental organisation. ADPP is hereby advised not to establish a presence in areas likely to be attacked by FALA forces. The FALA General Staff declines any responsibility for the safety of ADPP and its personnel," the communiqué said. However, it stressed that UNITA did not "wish to interfere" with the activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other agencies providing humanitarian aid in Angola. More

May 22nd - IDPs Trickle Home to Caxito
Two weeks after a UNITA attack on the Angolan town of Caxito, 55 km from the capital Luanda, small return movements of internally displaced persons (IDPs) were underway, humanitarian sources reported. As evidence of the improved security situation, on 18 May humanitarian agencies received security clearance to renew operations in Caxito and surrounding areas. More

The children who were strayed from the attack of Caxito in Angola have been handed over to the Catholic Mission in Ambaka in the care of priest Joaquim Ribeiro with the express demand to be sent to bishop D. Mota Mourisca the President of the Peace Movement "PRO PACE". The locality of Ambaka (Uge province) is 2 miles away from the Catholic Mission. The garrison of Ambaka was attacked and dispersed without any significant resistance from FAA and PIR. Subsequently, the children were handed over to the priest of the Catholic Mission last Friday. More