Nineteen priests and Religious killed by Islamists in Algeria in the 1990s will soon be recognised as martyrs, the postulator for their causes has said. The group includes Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran, Algeria, who was killed with his driver by a remote-controlled bomb at his residence, and seven Trappist monks kidnapped from the monastery of Tibhirine and beheaded by al-Qaeda-trained terrorists. The monks’ story was told in the film Of Gods and Men. Postulator Fr Thomas Georgeon told Mondo e Missione (“World and Mission”), a monthly magazine and website run by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, that the decree for their beatifications should be published this month. A 10-year-long armed conflict between government forces and Islamist rebels left tens of thousands of people dead, making the deaths of the 19 Religious “a martyrdom in the midst of a sea of violence that devastated Algeria”, Fr Georgeon said. “To pay homage to these 19 Christian martyrs means also paying homage to the memory of all those who gave their life in Algeria during those dark years,” he said. The conflict began in 1992 when the army cancelled the general election that fundamentalist politicians looked likely to win, and cracked down on the Islamic Salvation Front political movement. Human rights groups said at least 44,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the war. The monks of Tibhirine knew that they were in danger and were likely to be killed if they remained in Algeria. Fr Christian de Chergé, the prior of the monastery, had written in a letter nearly three years before his death that he and the other monks would willingly offer themselves as a sacrifice for the people of Algeria. Fr de Chergé wrote: “When the time comes, I would like to be able to have that stroke of lucidity which would permit me to ask forgiveness of God and of my brothers in humanity, forgiving wholeheartedly, at the same time, whoever my killer might be.” He added: “May we meet each other again, happy thieves, in paradise, should it please God.”