LUANDA, Angola (CWNews.com/Fides)

    Local church sources in Angola said on Wednesday that the group of Catholics taken hostage on July 18 in the mission of Ganda in Benguela Diocese was released on Tuesday.

    Two Angolan Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, Father Pedro Chingando and Father Joaquim Hatewa, one nun, six novices, five postulants, and about twenty lay people were abducted by a group of armed men in uniform.

    Father Chingando said the captives had been well-treated by the UNITA rebels, and said they had been accused of being in a covert military area. "UNITA considered the church a military location because they had information the church was surrounded by civilian defense when they thought the church should be neutral," Father Chingando told Radio Ecclesia.

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