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Bishop says 9 church workers killed

Source
Reuters - September 27, 1999

Lisbon – Nine church workers including two nuns and a priest have been shot dead by Indonesian troops in the eastern part of East Timor, Bishop Basilio do Nascimento told Portuguese television on Monday.

The Bishop of Baucau said the group, all of whom worked for the Baucau diocese, were gunned down on Saturday and their bodies dumped in a river.

"This morning we received the news, unfortunately confirmed, that the nine people were killed and their bodies thrown into a small river," he told the state RTP channel in a telephone interview from Baucau. He gave no further details of the attack.

He said the group comprised the head of the Caritas Roman Catholic aid organisation in Baucau, two students at the local seminary, two nuns, an Indonesian journalist who worked for a Japanese news organisation, two assistants to the nuns, and a driver.

They were attacked on their way back to Baucau from Lospalos in the far east of the territory where they had travelled to assess the type of humanitarian aid needed there. "Unfortunately, they never returned to Baucau," he said.

A Roman Catholic priest identified as Father Martins had earlier told Portugal's radio TSF by telephone from East Timor that seven church workers had died when their vehicle was attacked by a group of soldiers on the road between Baucau and Los Palos.

In Rome, the Roman Catholic news agency MISNA named the nuns as 69-year-old Erminia Cazzaniga, Mother Superior of Manatutu and Baucau, and 48-year-old East Timorese Celeste de Carvalho Pinto.

An Australian-led multinational force is trying to restore order to East Timor, laid waste by pro-Jakarta militias after the former Portuguese colony voted for independence from Indonesia on August 30.

[On the same day Associated Press said that a Falintil commander claimed his men had shot dead 11 militiamen responsible for the killing during a firefight on Monday morning. "Those who came to check the corpses, they fell into our ambush and were wiped out," the commander, identified only as Leres, told Portugal's TSF Radio by satellite telephone. He did not say how he knew those men were those responsible for Saturday's massacre - James Balowski.]

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