Second Phase (1972–1979) Related incidents In July 1973, an attack was carried out on St Alberts School, a Catholic mission high school in Mashonaland Central in Rhodesia overlooking the Zambezi valley in east of the country close to the border with Mozambique.

It was situated in the Mashonaland Central area of Rhodesia, on the escarpment overlooking the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe near the Mozambique border.

The march was intercepted by the Rhodesian Security Forces before the cadres crossed the border, and all but eight of the children and staff were recovered.

[1] Similar abductions were repeated over the following years and the security forces found themselves increasingly unable to prevent them.

[2] The captured schoolchildren would be marched to ZANLA bases in Mozambique where they would undergo "political 're-education'" (in the words of Abbott and Botham)[3] and guerrilla training.