Nuns’ Bus Stormed; 4 Dead : 11 Wounded as Lesotho Police Rescue Hostages

South African security forces today attacked a bus where hijackers held 70 nuns, schoolgirls and other pilgrims who were traveling to see Pope John Paul II, rescuing most of the hostages but killing four people and wounding 11.

At least eight ambulances were seen taking away dead or injured people, including a wounded nun, after volleys of machine-gun fire were heard and flares lit up the sky around the bus.

The dead included three of the four hijackers and a schoolgirl hostage, a police statement issued in Pretoria said.

The raid on the bus occurred about 20 minutes after the Pope arrived in Maseru, eight hours behind schedule after bad weather diverted his aircraft to South Africa.

Demanded Meeting

The hijackers, who seized the bus Tuesday, had demanded to meet with the Pope and Lesotho’s king, Moshoeshoe II.

Police ordered reporters at the scene to disperse and then chased them away with whips. The bus was parked outside the British High Commission.

The Pope arrived in this mountain kingdom encircled by South Africa after an overland journey from Johannesburg, where bad weather forced his plane to make an unscheduled landing.

The pontiff, a firm critic of apartheid, had intended to bypass South Africa on his tour of five neighboring, black-ruled nations.

John Paul did not kiss the ground in Johannesburg, as he customarily does the first time he visits a country, and made no public statements there. He did confer privately with Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, who briefed him about the hijacking before the pontiff left for Lesotho.

Posed as Pilgrims

State-run Lesotho Radio said there were about 70 hostages, including 8 nuns, 36 children, 16 women and 10 men.

One of the nuns was from Canada, and the rest of the hostages were from Lesotho, said Tom Thabane, secretary for Lesotho’s six-man ruling military council.

The four hijackers posed as pilgrims when they boarded the bus Tuesday at the start of its journey from rural Lesotho, police said. They then took over the bus, announced that they were from the Lesotho Liberation Army and said anyone who resisted would be killed, he said.

Lesotho Radio said the hijackers were armed with an automatic rifle, a pistol and two grenades. The radio said the hijackers had gone to the British mission because Britain, the former colonial power in Lesotho, is training the country’s army and police force.