SEVEN French monks kidnapped in Algeria two months ago by an Islamic organisation have been killed, the group said yesterday.
A communique which bore the usual signature of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) justified the killings by accusing the French government of not wanting to negotiate. If confirmed, the deaths bring to 18 the number of priests and nuns killed in Algeria over two years, 14 of them French.
The GIA is one of the most extreme groups fighting the Algerian government since it annulled elections in January 1992. The Trappist monks, aged between 50 and 80, were kidnapped on the night of March 26th from the monastery in Tibehirine, in the Islamic stronghold of Medea some 100 km south west of the capital, Algiers.
The communique, dated May 21st, said the GIA sent a messenger to the French government on April 30th with an audio cassette confirming the monks were still alive and a letter detailing how to negotiate if Paris wanted them to stay alive. At first France indicated it was ready to negotiate, the communique said.
"Some days later, the French President [Mr Jacques Chirac] and his Foreign Minister [Mr Herve de Charette] said they would not negotiate with the GIA, thereby cutting the cord. Therefore we cut the throats of the seven monks as we had promised to do."
Pope John Paul II, making a visit to Tunis on April 14th, urged the kidnappers to release the monks.
In a communique dated April 18th published by Al Hayat, an Arabic language daily, the GIA threatened to cut the throats of the monks if its own detained militants were not freed. On May 9th, however, France said for the first time that it was not negotiating with the GIA. The head of the Trappist order also said no contact had been made with the kidnappers.
Yesterday the French government made a "solemn" appeal to its nationals in Algeria to leave the country.
Meanwhile, Algerian papers said yesterday that Muslim guerrillas slit the throat of a woman and dumped her severed head by a road in north eastern Algeria. She was identified as Ms Ouardia Taalab (69), a former independence fighter against French colonial rule.