Government soldiers seized six members of an American medical team and two South African colleagues and held them at a military compound in northern Mozambique, U.S. officials said Saturday.
In Carlsbad, Calif., David Courson, president of the Carlsbad-based Christian Emergency Relief, said late Saturday that all eight had been flown to the capital of Maputo.He reported information received from Mozambique saying the eight had been held at a military outpost at Tete, near the border, and were flown 290 miles south to Maputo. He said U.S. Ambassador Melissa Wells was to meet with them there Sunday morning.
State Department spokeswoman Anita Stockman said in Washington that American authorities were told the eight were still in the custody of Mozambican soldiers and were being transported to Maputo.
"We don't have any confirmation that they have been freed," she said. She added she did not know if any charges had been filed against them.
Courson said he understood that they had not been charged.
Guerrillas of the Mozambican National Resistance have waged an insurgency against the leftist government since 1977. Thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced because of the fighting and resultant food shortages.
The Americans and South Africans were captured near the Malawi-Mozambique border in southern Africa, said Kris Courson, the relief group's director of medical services.
She identified the Americans as Dr. Ken Daugherty of San Diego; Dr. Fred Leist and his wife, Lucille Leist, of Bremerton, Wash.; Dr. John Cannon, a dentist from Davenport, Iowa, and paramedics Carol Roberts of Syracuse, N.Y., and Steve Sherrill of Stroudsburg, Pa.
Also seized were South African missionaries Peter Hammond and George Bezedenhout who were serving as guides, according to the relief organization.
The Mozambican news agency AIM had not reported the incident as of Saturday afternoon but responded to an inquiry with a message saying a group of foreigners had been captured near the Malawi border, possibly after entering illegally with guerrillas.
AIM said Hammond had ties with the South African military and ran an organization called "Front-line Fellowship" which is strongly opposed to the Mozambican government.