Murder of the monks of Tibhirine

Escalation 1994–1996 Massacres and reconciliation 1996–1999 Defeat of the GIA 1999–2002 On the night of 26–27 March 1996, seven monks of the Trappist order from the Our Lady of the Atlas Abbey of Tibhirine near Médéa, Algeria, were kidnapped during the Algerian Civil War.

After the kidnappers left, the remaining monks attempted to contact the police, but found that the telephone lines had been cut.

The funeral Mass for the monks was celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral of Notre-Dame d'Afrique (Our Lady of Africa) in Algiers on Sunday, 2 June 1996.

[3] The surviving two monks of Tibhirine left Algeria and travelled to a Trappist community near Fez in Morocco that would become the Priory of Our Lady of Atlas (today in Midelt).

[6] In 2008, La Stampa 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.