Martyrs of Algeria

The Martyrs of Algeria were a group of nineteen individuals slain in Algeria between 1994 and 1996. They were priests or professed religious belonging to religious congregations, including seven Trappist Cistercian monks. Their nations of origin were fifteen French, one Tunisian, two Spanish, and one Belgian. Their collective cause for beatification opened on 31 March 2007 titling them all as Servants of God. Pope Francis confirmed their beatification in 2018, and the group was beatified in Oran on 8 December 2018.

The nineteen individuals beatified were:

Henri Vergès                             Paul-Hélène Saint Raymond                María Caridad Álvarez Martín

Esther Paniagua Alonso        Alain Dieulangard                                   Charles Decker

Jean Chevillard                        Christian Chessel                                    Denise Leclerc

Jeanne Littlejohn                     Odette Prévost                                         Christian de Chergé

Paul Dochier                              Christophe Lebreton                              Michel Fleury

Christian Lemarchand            Célestin Ringeard                                    Paul Favre-Miville

                                                      Pierre Claverie

The death of the Trappist monks from the Atlas monastery remains controversial since there are reports that the regular armed forces or the Armed Islamic Group carried out the killings with the latter having owned up to the executions themselves. They were kidnapped on 27 March 1996 after twenty armed men stormed the monastery and took them prisoner. The kidnappers missed two monks hiding in a separate area. The telephone lines had been cut so, a call to police was impossible for the two hidden monks while an enforced curfew meant they could not drive to the nearest police station. The seven monks were beheaded two months later but their torsos were never found. The funeral for the monks was celebrated at Notre-Dame de Afrique in Algiers on 2 June and their remains were interred at the Tibhirine convent on 4 June.