Assassination of the monks of Tibhirine On the night of 26 – 27 March 1996 , seven monks from the monastery Notre - Dame de l ' Atlas of Tibhirine in Algeria , belonging to the Roman Catholic Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance ( known as Trappists ) were kidnapped during the Algerian Civil War . They were held for two months , and were found dead in late May 1996 . The circumstances of their kidnapping and death remain controversial ; the Armed Islamic Group ( " Groupe Islamique Armé " , GIA ) claimed responsibility for both , but in 2009 , retired General François Buchwalter reported that the monks had been accidentally killed by the Algerian army . Circumstances . At approximately 1 : 15 AM on 27 March 1996 , about twenty armed members of the Armed Islamic Group ( GIA ) arrived at the monastery of Tibhirine and kidnapped seven monks . Two others , Father Jean - Pierre and Father Amédée , were in separate rooms and escaped the kidnappers ' notice . After the kidnappers left , the remaining monks attempted to contact the police , but found that the telephone lines had been cut . As there was a curfew in force , they had to wait until morning to drive to the police station in Médéa . On 18 April , the GIA ' s communique no . 43 announced that they would release the monks in exchange for Abdelhak Layada , a former GIA leader who had been arrested three years earlier . On 30 April , a tape with the voices of the kidnapped monks , recorded on 20 April , was delivered to the French Embassy in Algiers . On 23 May , the GIA ' s communique no . 44 reported that they had executed the monks on 21 May . The Algerian government announced that their heads had been discovered on May 31 ; the whereabouts of their bodies is unknown . 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 . They were buried in the cemetery of the monastery at Tibhirine two days later . The surviving two monks of Tibhirine left Algeria and set up in a Trappist monastery near Midelt in Morocco . The monks . All seven monks killed were French . They were : Dom Christian ( de Chergé ) , Brother Luc ( born Paul Dochier ) , Father Christophe ( Lebreton ) , Brother Michel ( Fleury ) , Father Bruno ( born Christian Lemarchand ) , Father Célestin ( Ringeard ) , and Brother Paul ( Favre - Miville ) . Accusations against Algerian army . 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 the monks had been killed accidentally by an Algerian military helicopter which attacked the camp where they were being held captive . In July 2009 , the retired French general François Buchwalter , who was military attache in Algeria at the time , testified to a judge that the monks had been accidentally killed by a helicopter from the Algerian government during an attack on a guerrilla position , then beheaded after their death to make it appear as though the GIA had killed them . The day after Buchwalter ' s statement , former GIA leader Abdelhak Layada - who was in prison when the monks were killed , and later freed under a national amnesty - responded by reiterating that the GIA had indeed beheaded the monks after the breakdown of negotiations with the French secret services .