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UNITA rebels abducted 16 children who were attending mass in a Roman Catholic church in Angola's northern Kwanza Norte province, AFP reported on Thursday. According to the report, Bishop Luis Escarpa told Radio Ecclesia that soldiers burst into the church at Kiluanji during mass on Sunday and made off with the girls and boys, mostly under 14 years old.
In May UNITA soldiers abducted more than 50 orphans from a school in Caxito, about 60 km north of Luanda. The children were freed a few days later and handed over to church authorities amid widespread alarm at rebel activity so close to the coastal capital. The kidnappings, highlighted in the media because of the large number of children and Caxito's proximity to the capital, were not uncommon, aid workers in Angola said at the time. They said they received constant reports of children being kidnapped during raids on villages across the country.
More than half a million people have been killed and almost four million displaced as a result of Angola's 26-year-old post-independence civil war.
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