Atlanta Daily World

122 American Missionaries Here from Congo

WASHINGTON - (UPI)- Two giant Air Force transport planes Thursday brought 122 American missionaries, wives and children safely home from the strife-torn African Congo.

Some of the refugees told of frightful experiences, including rape and beatings, when mutinous Congolese soldiers ran amok and attacked mission outposts' in the jungle earlier this month. But the majority said they had not been molested, and many praised the heroism of native Congolese Christians who risked their own lives to protect their white missionary friends from attack.

Nearly all of them said they left the Congo only because they were ordered out by the U. S. Embassy and their stateside mission boards. And most insisted that they will go back to the jungles to resume their work as soon as conditions permit.

There were 47 children among the refugees, and they seemed most eager of all to go back to the Congo. Many of them were born there, and have never known any other home.

CLOTHING ABANDONED
The Air Force transports picked up the refugees Wednesday at Brazzaville and stopped overnight in the Azores before delivering them at nearby Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland shortly after noon e.d.t., Thursday.

Weight limitations and the haste of their departure forced the missionaries to abandon most of their clothing and other belongings in the Congo. A small army of Red Cross workers met the planes, with extra clothing and toilet kits for the adults.

The refugees were taken by military bus to the Statler-Hilton Hotel in downtown Washington, where free meals and rooms were provided for them. The Red Cross helped them place long distance telephone calls to relatives, and arranged transportation to their home towns all over America.

RELATES GRIM EXPERIENCE
The grimmest experiences were related by three missionaries of the American Baptist Convention, who were stationed with their wives and children at Sona Mpangu, deep in the African bush country, about 200 miles from the Congo capital of Leopoldville.

They were the Revs. Charles Stuart of Worcester, Mass.; Donald L. Ellis of Jeffersonville, Ind. and Gordon L. Bottemiller of Phoenix, Ariz.

The Rev. Mr. Ellis, 34, said a truck filled with about 20 or 30 Congolese soldiers raced into the mission compound on July 11. The soldiers jumped out of the truck and began a house-to-house search for white people.

"Apparently they thought we were Belgians," said the Rev. Mr. Ellis.

"They beat us with rifle butts. The women were slapped and knocked around. But for some reason they didn't touch any of the children. Some of the Congolese civilians tried to stop them, but they also were beaten."