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Hutu rebels vow to free bishop "soon"

    NAIROBI

    Burundian Hutu rebels holding a Roman Catholic bishop and his driver said on Monday that the priest was in good health and "could be released soon", news media reported.

    "He is not a hostage. We are going to free him as soon as we can do so safely, because there is a war on," Pierre Nkurunziza, spokesman for the Forces pour la defence de la democratie (FDD), told AFP.

    The papal nuncio in Bujumbura, Bishop Michael Courtney, told the Missionary Service News Agency, MISNA, that the church had been able to contact the rebels through diplomatic channels. The rebels had promised they would not harm Bishop Joseph Nduhirubusa, whom they abducted on Saturday.

    FDD fighters seized Nduhirubusa and his driver after killing two military escorts in the Kabira forest as they were returning in a private car to the eastern town of Ruyigi, the bishop's diocese. In a communiqué announcing the abduction, the FDD said Nduhirubusa had been seized "to guarantee his safety, from the moment he was without an escort".

    Quoting Western diplomats in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, MISNA reported that Nduhirubusa was most likely the unintended victim of the ambush and that the rebels only discovered his identity moments after their action.

    The agency quoted Courtney as saying he was convinced of the FDD's desire to safeguard Nduhirubusa. The Associated Press reported that Nduhirubusa was the second high-ranking Roman Catholic cleric the rebels had abducted since 1996, when they seized and killed the archbishop of Gitega, Joachim Ruhuna.

    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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