Attack on St Alberts School
Attack on St Alberts School | |
---|---|
Part of Rhodesian Bush War | |
Type | Kidnapping |
Planned by | unknown |
Target | St Alberts School |
Date | July 1973 |
Executed by | ZANLA |
Outcome | 284 students and staff rescued, 8 students and teachers remained in cadres hands. |
Casualties | unknown killed |
In July 1973, an attack was carried out on St Alberts School, a Catholic mission high school in Mashonaland Central in Rhodesia overlooking the Zambezi valley in east of the country close to the border with Mozambique. The attack was carried out by ZANLA as part of the Rhodesian Bush War.
Background
St Alberts High School was a coeducational
The attack
In July 1973,
Similar abductions were repeated over the following years and the security forces found themselves increasingly unable to prevent them.[2] The captured schoolchildren would be marched to ZANLA bases in Mozambique where they would undergo "political 're-education'" (Abbott's and Botham's words[3]) and guerrilla training. The school was closed in the late 1970s at the height of the Rhodesian Bush War. It had become a haven for the recruitment of communist backed terrorists
.
References
- ISBN 978-0-7099-3412-7.
- ^ Cilliers 1984, p. 17
- ^ Abbott & Botham 1986, p. 12
Sources
- Abbott, Peter; Botham, Philip (1986). Modern African Wars: Rhodesia, 1965โ80. Oxford: ISBN 978-0-85045-728-5.