Hope that Mrs. Dora Bloch will be found alive diminished today when Britain’s High Commissioner to Uganda, James Hennessy, returned from Kampala with no further information as to the whereabouts of the 75-year-old widow who is the only Air France hijack hostage still unaccounted for. “Everyone can draw their own conclusions,” Hennessy told newsmen at the airport before driving to the Foreign Office to report on his mission.
Hennessy, who was on home leave, was dispatched to Uganda last Thursday to determine what happened to Mrs. Bloch who holds dual British-Israeli citizenship. She was not among the hostages rescued by Israel from Entebbe Airport July 3. According to unconfirmed reports, she was kidnapped by Ugandan agents from the Kampala hospital where she was taken on becoming ill several days before the rescue.
Press reports here today said that Ugandan President Idi Amin told Hennessy that he had given orders to return any hospitalized hostages to the airport on July 3, the day before expiration of the hijackers’ deadline. On the same day. Amin flew to Mauritius to attend a meeting of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) and he told Hennessy, according to the press reports, that he had no direct knowledge that his orders were carried out. He insisted that he had no personal grievance against Mrs. Bloch and said he provided his own car to take her to the hospital.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
