Escape from Portugal-the Church in Action: The secret flight of 60 African students to France

Charles R. Harper, William J. Nottingham

ISBN 10: 160350060X / ISBN 13: 9781603500609

Published by Lucas Park Books May 2015, 2015

About this Item

Light edge and cover wear. Unmarked pages.AWSOME BOOK YOU WONT BELIEVE IT???Signed Copy?? All Orders Shipped With Tracking And Delivery Confirmation Numbers.

Seller Inventory # 408764

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Escape from Portugal-the Church in Action: The secret flight of 60 African students to France
• Publisher: Lucas Park Books May 2015
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 160350060X
• ISBN 13: 9781603500609
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Religion Soft Cover

About this title

Synopsis

This is the story of the dramatic clandestine escape, in June of 1961, of sixty African students from Portugal across Spain and into France. Most were Angolan intellectuals. Some were from Mozambique and others from Guinea-Bissau, the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé-and-Principe. Soon after the first anti-colonial armed rebellions broke out in Angola (March 1961), the student community in Portugal suffered increasing harassment by the Portuguese political police. Passports were confiscated and some arrests of suspected student leaders occurred. Many students - men and women - decided to flee Portugal illegally. It was risky business. False passports from friendly African countries had to be found, contacts set up for night border crossings into Franco's Spain, and then overland transportation to France. Some of the students, graduates of North American and British missionary schools in Africa, appealed to the World Council of Churches in Geneva to help them escape. The challenge was accepted by the French Protestant service agency CIMADE. The successful operation makes for exciting reading.