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Three South Africans captured

Three South Africans allegedly captured and tortured by soldiers in the DRC, at the weekend told how they had each been marched into a room and “sentenced to death”. Hans Blunk, Sue Davis-Erasmus and Dirk van der Dussen, who had been held captive since last Tuesday after being arrested at the border post for being in possession of cameras, were told they would be shot, the South African news agency (SAPA) reported. Soldiers accused them of being spies. “We were told they would take us to the airport and shoot us in front of the aeroplane...They said our bodies would be shown on TV because we were spies,” SAPA quoted Davis-Erasmus as saying. They were released on Friday after a business associate reportedly paid a large sum of money to their captors.


This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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