Namibians abducted and tortured

Two Namibians were abducted and tortured inside Angola allegedly by UNITA rebels on 25 December, Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) reported on Sunday. The two men, Daniel Ndeluudila and Simeon Hamulo, were kidnapped near a cattle post at the village of Oufukalelo, less than 10 km inside Angola by a band of between 50 and 100 rebels.

They told NSHR investigators they were marched further north to an Angolan village, Onamwiidi, where they were whipped and slashed with machetes or axes. The alleged UNITA soldiers, some of them wearing uniforms of the Angolan “Ninja” counter-insurgency police and government army, also beat to death three Angolan villagers they had abducted. A further four people, also Angolans, were “taken away to an undisclosed location,” the NSHR statement said. Ndeluudila and Hamulo were left for dead. They said they did not know why they had been captured, but were accused of spying and had been questioned over the location of Angolan army bases. Both men are currently in hospital in Namibia recovering from their injuries. “We are unable to say precisely who did this (to them),” Phil ya Nangoloh of NSHR told IRIN.

Meanwhile, about 40 Namibians who were abducted by suspected UNITA bandits this year in Kavango were on Friday returned to Namibia after being rescued by the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) at Mavinga, southern Angola. Over 400 rescued Angolans were also handed over to the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) at Calai by the NDF, the official news agency Nampa reported.

Kavango regional governor Sebastian Karupu commended the NDF. “It is something to be happy about as these people will join their families in different constituencies of the region to celebrate the New Year after suffering in the bushes,” he said.