Missionaries freed in Mozambique

by John Thavis in Rome THREE missionary sisters in Mozambique have been freed unharmed after several months in captivity by anti-government guerrillas, officials of their religious orders said last week. Released were Sr Luigia Amatia Bottasso, an Italian member of the Institute of the Consolata Missions of Turin, Sr Alma Lomboni, an Italian with the Comboni Missionary Sisters of Verona, and Sr Mari Piedade de Jesus Figueira, a Portuguese Comboni missionary.
They had been held by the guerrilla army of the Mozambique National Resistance, which has waged a struggle against the Marxist government in the African nation. Pope John Paul II publicly appealed for their release in March. Officials of the two missionary orders said the current whereabouts of the Sisters was being kept secret for security reasons. They said that according to Italian Foreign Ministry officials, he three left Mozambique in gcad health after being freed around the beginning of August. Sr Bottasso, 44, a teacher in Mozambique for 17 years, was abducted by armed guerrillas last November near Maua, where the order has a mission.
Sr Lomboni, 44, and Sr Figueira, 48, were kidnapped in March near Nampula in northern Mozambique, one of the centres of the rebel movement.