On the night of 26–27 March 1996, seven monks of the

Trappist order The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance ( la, Ordo Cisterciensis Strictioris Observantiae, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a ...

from the Our Lady of the Atlas Abbey of Tibhirine near

Médéa Médéa ( ber, Lemdiyyet, ar, المدية ''al-Madiya''), population 123,535 (1998 census) is the capital city of Médéa Province, Algeria. It is located roughly 68 km south of Algiers. The present-day city is situated on the site of ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, were kidnapped during the

Algerian Civil War The Algerian Civil War ( ar, rtl=yes, الْحَرْبُ الْأَهْلِيَّةُ الجَزَائِرِيَّةُ, al-Ḥarb al-ʾAhlīyah al-Jazāʾirīyah) was a civil war in Algeria fought between the Algerian government and various Is ...

. They were held for two months, and found dead in late May 1996. The circumstances of their kidnapping and death remain controversial; the

Armed Islamic Group The Armed Islamic Group (GIA, from french: Groupe Islamique Armé; ar, الجماعة الإسلامية المسلّحة, al-Jamāʿa l-ʾIslāmiyya l-Musallaḥa) was one of the two main Islamist insurgent groups that fought the Algerian gove ...

(''Groupe Islamique Armé'', GIA) claimed responsibility for both, but in 2009, retired General François Buchwalter reported that the monks were killed by the Algerian army.

Circumstances

At approximately 1:15 a.m. on 27 March 1996, about twenty armed members of the

(GIA) arrived at the

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

of Tibhirine and kidnapped seven monks. Two others, Father Jean-Pierre and Father Amédée, were in separate rooms and escaped the kidnappers' notice. After the kidnappers left, the remaining monks attempted to contact the police, but found that the telephone lines had been cut. As there was a curfew in force, they had to wait until morning to drive to the police station in

. On 18 April, the GIA's communiqué no. 43 announced that they would release the monks in exchange for Abdelhak Layada, a former GIA leader who had been arrested three years earlier. On 30 April, a tape with the voices of the kidnapped monks, recorded on 20 April, was delivered to the French Embassy in

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

. On 23 May, the GIA's communiqué no. 44 reported that they had executed the monks on 21 May. The Algerian government announced that their heads had been discovered on May 31; the whereabouts of their bodies is unknown. The funeral

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

for the monks was celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral of

Notre-Dame d'Afrique Notre Dame d'Afrique (English: “Our Lady of Africa”) is a Catholic basilica in Algiers, Algeria. Pope Pius IX granted two Pontifical decrees towards the shrine on the same day on 15 April 1876: * The first decree invoked to canonically crown ...

(Our Lady of Africa) in

on Sunday, 2 June 1996. Their remains were buried in the cemetery of the monastery at Tibhirine two days later. The surviving two monks of Tibhirine left Algeria and traveled to a Trappist monastery near

Midelt Midelt (Berber language: ⵎⵉⴷⴻⵍⵜ, Arabic: ميدلت) is a town in Morocco, in the high plains between the Middle Atlas and High Atlas mountain ranges. With a population of 55,304 recorded in the 2014 Moroccan census, Midelt serves as t ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

The monks

All of the murdered monks were French. They were: Dom

Christian de Chergé Charles-Marie Christian de Chergé, O.C.S.O (Colmar, 18 January 1937 – 21 May 1996), was a French Roman Catholic Cistercian monk. He was one of the seven monks from the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas in Tibhirine, Algeria, kidnapped and believed ...

, Brother Luc (born Paul Dochier), Father Christophe (Lebreton), Brother Michel (Fleury), Father Bruno (born Christian Lemarchand), Father Célestin (Ringeard), and Brother Paul (Favre-Miville).

Accusations against Algerian army

In 2008, ''

La Stampa ''La Stampa'' (meaning ''The Press'' in English) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin, Italy. It is distributed in Italy and other European nations. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. History and profile The paper was fou ...

'' reported that an anonymous high-ranking Western government official, based in Algeria at the time of the murders, had told them that the kidnapping was orchestrated by a DRS-infiltrated GIA group, but that the monks had been killed accidentally by an Algerian military helicopter which attacked the camp where they were being held captive. In July 2009, the retired French general François Buchwalter, who was military attaché in Algeria at the time, testified to a judge that the monks had been accidentally killed by an Algerian government helicopter during an attack on a guerrilla position, then beheaded after their death to make it appear as though the GIA had killed them. The day after Buchwalter's statement, former GIA leader Abdelhak Layada — who was in prison when the monks were killed — responded by reiterating the claim that the GIA had beheaded the monks after a breakdown of negotiations with the

French secret service This is a list of current and former French intelligence agencies. Currently active *DGSE: Directorate-General for External Security – '' Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure''. It is the military foreign intelligence agency, whi ...

Martyrs of Algeria

The seven monks of the Our Lady of the Atlas, who were kidnapped and later beheaded, were beatified with twelve other

martyrs of Algeria The Martyrs of Algeria were a group of nineteen individuals slain in Algeria between 1994 and 1996 during the Algerian Civil War. They all were priests or professed religious belonging to religious congregations, including seven Trappist Cisterc ...

on December 8, 2018. The celebration occurred in Oran, Algeria.

References

External links

"Atlas Martyrs"
Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance.