wfn.org | AMERICAN BAPTIST NEWS FOR MAY 19, 1997

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American Baptist News Service_____________________
Office of Communication / American Baptist Churches USA
P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851
Phone: (610)768-2077 / Fax: (610)768-2320 
Richard W. Schramm, Director (E-mail: RICH_SCHRAMM.PARTI@ECUNET.ORG)

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UPDATE: MAY 19, 1997
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NEWS FEATURE
REPORT NOTES RELATIVE CALM, JUBILATION AS ZAIRIAN REBELS
CLAIM CAPITAL; AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY IN VANGA
DETAILS OUTREACH TO VICTIMS OF KENGE MASSACRE
     VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABNS)--In a communique yesterday, American
Baptist International Ministries missionary Ed Noyes reported that
the Zairian capital of Kinshasa was fairly calm and its people
jubilant as the rebel forces of Laurent Kabila began to secure parts
of that city.
     Noyes said the rebels were in control of the part of city
containing his family's house and the offices of the Baptist
Community of Western Zaire (which had not been damaged or looted),
and that gunfire had ceased between fleeing government forces under
ousted President Mobutu and the victorious rebels.
     In central Zaire, Dr. Bill Clemmer, who with other American
Baptist medical missionaries George Win and Mark Thompson remains at
the Vanga Hospital, reported late last week how the hospital has
cared for victims of a government troop-led massacre in Kenge:
     "As reported in the national news, government and mercenary
troops entered the town of Kenge 12 hours before an expected rebel
takeover...and destroyed anything which could be of use to the rebels
including
bridges, clinics, and the airstrip.  As if this wasn't enough, for
some unknown reason the troops then turned their fury on the civilian
population waiting to come under rebel control.
     "As they broke into house after house, they pulled out the men
and boys and shot them in their yards often in full sight of their
family.  Merchants along the main road had their shops and clients
rifled with machine gun fire indiscriminately.  
     "We were told stories of fleeing children being gunned down by
these troops.  Even churches and
gatherings of Red Cross volunteers were not spared this senseless
massacre.
     "The wounded from Kenge who arrived...in Vanga with our rescue
team spoke of more than 300 civilian deaths.  They are still finding
bodies in homes and in trenches.  As the injured come out of the bush
and forest, the ranks at the Catholic Hospital continue to swell.  We
will continue to respond to this tragedy with whatever means are
available to us.
     "The two doctors in Kenge and the largely Catholic population
of that town have expressed their profound and heartfelt gratitude to
the Evangelical Protestant Health Team from Vanga Hospital who were
the first to respond to this area cut off from all avenues of
international aid.  The medical and surgical supplies provided to
Vanga Hospital by White Cross and American Baptist Churches and then
sent to our colleagues in Kenge have made a statement beyond
institutions helping institutions in time of need.  
     "True, the material need in Kenge was immense, and all were
overwhelmed with the cases and cases of 
plaster, bandages, transfusion kits, surgical material and medicines
donated by our mission.  But the reality of American Baptist Churches
reaching across war-torn Zaire to come to the rescue of a needy
Catholic facility in a town over 200 kilometers away is a story that
needs to be told.
     "I was overwhelmed this afternoon with an emotion we don't
often express in missions....
     "Pride in our Zairian physician, Dr. Katele, hand picked and
trained as a young man by retired missionary Dr. Dan Fountain and
later charged with the administrative control of Vanga Hospital.  A
man who, during the Ebola crisis in 1995, walked 18 km. to the
village of a boy dying with hemorrhagic fever to console his family
and ensure precautions were taken in that village to prevent the
spread of this fatal disease.  A man who was the first to volunteer
to go to Kenge and traverse a landscape pocketed by land mines,
destruction and ongoing fighting.  Pride and then joy as I tearfully
watched him hold and hug his four children upon his return to Vanga
this morning.  
     "Pride in our American Baptist surgeons, Drs. Win and Thompson,
who labored for over 12 hours, 
patiently and painstakingly trying to reconstruct the limb of a young
man, his arm shattered by bullets, who without such help would never
be able to function again.  Pride in these two missionary colleagues
who even now are tackling another difficult and extensive shrapnel
wound of a person's face, in the late hours in the operating
theater....
     "Pride in our Vanga mission pastors and leaders who...decided
to undertake substantial risks and respond. 
     "Pride in our supporting American Baptist Churches and
governing mission board and personnel at International Ministries who
have time and time again listened and responded to our requests for
supplies and medicines, often by faith.
     "...Pride in our churches and the faithful whose giving has
enabled us to help others in such crises, whose prayers and
faithfulness....have allowed us to withstand the natural and civil
disasters which traverse Zaire today...."  

97U519
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