Anne McLoughlin, Irish
aid worker
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by the government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and v ...
and hostage, born c. 1960.
Background
A native of Coolebeg,
Cloontuskert
Cloontuskert () is a village, townland and civil parish in County Roscommon, Ireland. The village is on the R371 road, about north-west of Lanesborough. Known as "Clontuskert" for census purposes, the population was 171 at the 2016 census. Th ...
,
County Galway
"Righteousness and Justice"
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, image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg
, map_caption = Location in Ireland
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, McLoughlin was the centre of an international event when she was taken hostage in
Ethiopia in 1984. She had been working with ''Concern'' (now
Concern Worldwide
Concern Worldwide (often referred to as Concern) is Ireland's largest aid and humanitarian agency. Since its foundation 50 years ago it has worked in 50 countries. According to its latest annual report, Concern helped 28.6 million of the world's ...
) at
Korem
Korem (Agewugna: áŽá¨/ Sun) (alternative forms include Quoram, Kworam) is a town and separate woreda in Tigray, Ethiopia. Located on the eastern edge of the Ethiopian highlands in the Debubawi (Southern) Zone of the Tigray Region, this town ...
since November 1983, as an administrator of aid to
Somali refugees of local wars. In a message recorded prior to her kidnapping, she stated that:
"The people are absolutely starving. I find it hard to describe the poverty in Korem and Ethiopia. There are people lying in their own diarrhoea with all sorts of diseases like malaria, dysentery, typhoid, relapsing fever and the babies suffer from hypothermia because of the extreme night and day temperatures. Complete families are suffering from the drought here."
TPLF attack and capture
On Wednesday 21 April 1984 the
Tigrayan People's Liberation Front attacked Korem. Two of the heavily armed guerrillas seized McLoughlin and the other volunteers. They were forced to walk over the mountains or ride mules till they reached the militant's camp. They were held in captivity in extremely primitive conditions, surviving on very spare meals.
However, the
Tigrayan had not intended to harm the volunteers, their purpose been to bring world attention to the famine.
Release and later life
On 1 May they began the long journey down from the mountains. They again crossed several rivers and were anxious at the constant fear of being attacked and shot by other militant elements. They arrived in
Khartoum where they were greeted by Concern's field director. They had been in captivity for forty-nine days.
McLoughlin later worked as a teacher in
Tanzania, where she met James O'Loughlin of
Ballinrobe, and later married. She subsequently moved to
Ennis
Ennis () is the county town of County Clare, in the mid-west of Ireland. The town lies on the River Fergus, north of where the river widens and enters the Shannon Estuary. Ennis is the largest town in County Clare, with a population of 25,27 ...
,
County Clare.
References
''The Parish of Clontuskert - Glimpses into its Past'', 2009, pp. 325â327
{{DEFAULTSORT:McLoughlin, Anne
People from County Galway
Irish people taken hostage
Living people
1960 births