Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

Reuters new agency is reporting the attempted abduction of the Bishop of Bujumbura, in Burundi, by the Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL).

The agency said that the Rt Revd Pie Ntukamazina had been stopped by the FNL, along with other Church officials, while travelling in a three-vehicle convoy last Sunday. The officials were forced into nearby countryside, robbed of their possessions and held captive.

A counter-attack by government forces on the rebels' hideout allowed the churchmen to flee and they hid in nearby scrubland until morning, when they returned to the capital, Bujumbura.

A member of the National Council of Protestant Churches in Burundi said after meeting the bishop on Monday that the FNL had made demands to their captives that the government disband the army and create a new force.

Reuters added that this attack followed previous violence against church officials in December of last year, where the Vatican's Irish Ambassador to Burundi, Papal Nuncio Michael Courtney, was murdered - a charge that the FNL has denied.

Burundi is due to stage elections in October, though Reuters reports that the FNL has some 3,500 fighters stationed around the capital