[Lisa Ling] Coming up, on Life on the Line: In the early 1980s, Angola was entangled in civil war.

[sounds of gunfire] Two groups were fighting for control of the country: Unita controlled much of southern Angola and government troops controlled the north.

Bongo Mission Hospital was caught in the middle.

[speaking Spanish] We could not do anything to save their lives.

As the war dragged on, Unita started kidnapping foreigners.

[speaking Spanish] People with their guns were around the house.

The only thinking for me was what to do with the baby.

We was afraid, really.

[speaking Spanish] [dramatic music] [dramatic music] [shallow breathing] [dramatic music] [dramatic music] [voices, gunfire] [dramatic music] [music swells] [music swells] [machine beeping slowly] [Lisa Ling] Life on the Line An inspiring look into personal journeys of hope and determination.

[music] [Dr. Hart] In the first half of the 20th century, 100 years ago, missionaries established 25 hospitals for the Adventist Church across Africa.

Bush hospitals, as we called them; end-of-the-road hospitals; hospitals that are, that are out in the villages.

[Lisa Ling] In the early 1920s, the organization decided to build one of these hospitals at a new mission in Angola.

[Fred Baker] And they asked my grandfather, James, and grandmother, Annie Baker, if they would go to Angola, and they accepted.

[Lisa Ling] After finding a suitable piece of land, the Bakers established Bongo Mission in 1924.

And so, the first thing they did was start a treatment room -- not actually a hospital to begin with, but a treatment room.

And my grandmother, who was a registered nurse, ran the treatment room.

And then, along the way they built quite a few different things so that the mission became self-sustaining and prospered.

And this used to be a thriving hospital.

Up until the mid-'70s this was one of the best hospitals in the country.

[music continues] [Lisa Ling] As teenagers, Conchita and Ferran first met at a church youth meeting.

Although they lived hundreds of miles apart, over the years they stayed in contact.

I don't remember a special day that you said me- You wanted to marry with me.

No reason I know.

No.

Nothing.

Ha.

[Lisa Ling] Growing up, they both heard stories about doctors and nurses working in underserved communities in developing countries.

Those stories would lead both of them into careers in medicine: Ferran becoming a doctor and Conchita a nurse and midwife.

Uh, when I finished my studies, uh, I worked in the hospital, where, university hospital.

After Ferran finished medical school, both of the Sabates would study tropical medicine with the hope of soon working in a developing country, just like the doctors and nurses in the stories they heard as children.

I was dream, maybe, one day I, I will be there.

Ya?

[Lisa Ling] In 1979, that dream would become a reality.

The Sabates were offered positions in Angola at a hospital called Bongo.

Their job would be to reopen the hospital, which had all but shut down three years earlier, when the American doctor working there was forced to leave.

By the circumstances of the civil war, he and his family were forced to, to leave the, the country and go.

[sounds of voice and voices, yelling in background] [Dr. Hart] Angola has a somewhat tragic history.

Uh, it started with the War for Independence in Portugal in the mid-'70s, but then quickly morphed into a, a struggle of ideological control of the country that went into a civil war for 25 years; a bloody civil war that destroyed much of the country.

Similar to what happened in other countries in Africa: certainly Rwanda during the genocide and Mozambique during their civil war.

Many of the professionals had left Angola during the civil war.

With the war raging, Ferran and Conchita had to decide whether to follow their dreams and go or not.

[gunfire] We, we were of course, a, a little reluctant.

We see that, okay, if they need us, we go.

Uh, if there is any problem, uh, we will see.

Ha.

And we, we were very young.

They, they say you will be there with another couple or so of uh, uh doctors.

You will be not, not alone.

We arrived at the beginning of uh, 1990.

[Lisa Ling] The Sabates arrived at Angola with a camera and plenty of film.

Soon, they realized that because of the ongoing civil war the other doctors would not come.

Ferran and Conchita did everything from train nurses, to deliver babies, to serve as trauma surgeons for landmine victims.

Word spread that the hospital at Bongo was open again.

People were coming from hundreds of kilometers away to be treated.

The Sabates needed some help.

[sound of baby crying] [speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] That all changed when Victoria met the person in charge of staffing Bongo Mission Hospital.

She asked him about the possibility of working there.

[speaking Spanish] [sound of gunfire] [speaking Spanish] It's estimated that up to 6 million landmines were buried in Angola during the civil war.

[Conchita] Everywhere they put these mines and when the people went to the, to the land to cultivate, the mines have explosion.

[speaking Spanish].

Some we could, at least do the amputation, and others we could not do any, anything to to, to, to help, to save their lives.

[speaking Spanish] [solemn piano chords] [Lisa Ling] Even with the war going on around them, Ferran and Conchita had a reason to be happy: they were expecting their first child.

But it was a breech birth.

[Ferran] It was uh, very difficult delivery, and uh, I was, I was afraid, really.

With the help of Victoria, Ferran had to perform an emergency procedure to save the life of his wife and son.

But finally, the delivery was a success.

[Conchita] And when I had a, crying.

Ha ha.

Say okay, it's okay.

The Sabates named their son for his father, and after being at Bongo for two years, their plan was to go on furlough and take baby Ferran home to Spain.

To show our son to, to the family and to the, to the friends, we were happy.

Ha ha ha.

Uh, until that night.

[sound of boom] [speaking Spanish] [Ferran] We see through the window people with uh, guns were around the, the, the house.

They say, "We are from Unita.

We need to talk with, with you."

[speaking Spanish] [speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] Unita, the guerrilla group fighting government soldiers for control of Angola, had come to kidnap all of the foreigners working at Bongo.

First, I, I thought how to do, to, to protect uh, my wife and, and my son.

And I also, I realized if I did not open the, the door, they had the capacity to, to enter.

I decided to, to open the door.

The only thinking for me was, what to do with the baby.

[Lisa Ling] Conchita told the soldiers they didn't have to kidnap them.

She would take the baby and leave for Spain.

[Conchita] Tomorrow I go.

No problem.

With the baby.

Please, because he's just a little bitty boy, and I don't know if I can, uh, uh, uh, do this.

The, the, anxiety was uh, was very high.

You know?

[Lisa Ling] Baby Ferran was in a basket near his mother.

[Lisa Ling] One of the soldiers took the basket and walked out of the house.

[Conchita] Ah, no, no, no, no, you don't go with the baby.

Come here!

Ah, I have no shoes, I have nothing.

And the, the person who carried the baby, I follow.

[Ferran] I say, "Please, uh, take me as a prisoner, and uh, uh, maybe will be enough."

He say, "No, no."

All of you should follow us.

Well, uh, in front of an, an army, you should obey.

[speaking Spanish] [speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] Victoria did not open her door for the soldiers.

She told them she needed to stay and take care of the mission.

Then, the soldiers told her they had already taken the Sabate family.

[speaking Spanish] [ominous music] [speaking Spanish] [Ferran] Persons running out the hospital, the nurses in duty, dressed in their ice.

Was very difficult, that moment, to leave the mission.

[speaking Spanish] In less than half an hour, we found ourselves walking on the bush in uh, no direction, just following this uh, group of uh, guerrilla.

[speaking Spanish] The first night was, was very dangerous for us.

[speaking Spanish] Uh, the dogs were "Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo."

[Lisa Ling] The barking dogs belonged to government soldiers, enemies of Unita.

[speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] Unita forced them to continue walking past the government soldiers' camp.

They thought they had sneaked by without being noticed.

They would keep walking for 12 more hours until finally being allowed to rest.

But the government soldiers had been following them.

Half an hour after they stopped walking, a firefight started.

[Ferran] We, we, we heard an explosion.

A second explosion, a next explosion.

And at that point, the commander of the, the guerrilla, say "You run.

Not walk, run."

We ran, we ran so many hours, far, far, far yes.

Was difficult because I give the breast to the baby.

No, another food for baby.

Every few hours, Conchita had to stop and breastfeed baby Ferran.

And the baby, when was little bit tranquil, oh!

Again to run.

So, uh, was very difficult on me.

[speaking Spanish] In that moment I learned that maybe if I am near the, to, to die.

[ominous music] [rustling of grass] [speaking in Spanish] [speaking in Spanish] [Ferran] The first week I was afraid, really, to walk in difficult conditions without uh, training, with uh, very few food.

Only when we cross a river, we can get uh water.

The first was spent walking all night and resting during the day to avoid government troops.

[Lisa Ling] The group they were with would swell to over 100 people at times, as locals would travel with them for protection.

The group from Bongo tried to walk in the middle of the pack to avoid potential firefights at the front or back of the group.

[Conchita] We walk all the day.

We only stop when the baby needs to take the breast.

All was every day was to lie down.

[Lisa Ling] They crossed crocodile-infested rivers and heard hyenas at night.

Makeshift huts that the soldiers put up were full of bugs and parasites.

It was better to sleep outside.

Baby Ferran was carried in his basket on the head of a Unita member.

One day, the covering of his basket came off, leaving him badly sunburned.

[Conchita] It was red, very red, very red.

Ahh, what, what we can do now with the baby.

[Ferran] It was at that moment, I, I wondering about the, the possibility of dehydration.

I was very afraid for the life of my son.

[Conchita] Every day was, was uh, a possibility that we don't know what will happen.

Yes.

Yes.

[Lisa Ling] Baby Ferran survived.

His parents decided to give him a middle name in the local language.

I tell Ferran, and Ferran, read with me.

The name will be Elovoko.

El Avoco means hope.

Always, we, we have the hope.

[speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] After five weeks of walking deeper and deeper into Unita territory, they were loaded into a military truck.

For the next week they were driven further south towards the border with Namibia, heading towards a prisoner camp.

When they arrived, they met a Spanish priest who had been kidnapped nearly two years ago.

[Ferran] At that moment, I thought maybe we can stay here also some years, waiting for the liberation.

Uh, uh, my son will, will grow here.

[Lisa Ling] In the prison camp, weeks turned into months.

[moving piano chords] The group from Bongo didn't know how long they would be held there.

Behind the scenes, the organization that ran Bongo Mission was working towards their freedom.

They, they sent a cargo plane full of food, uh, uh, medicines, clothes.

Eventually, a deal was made: the prisoners in exchange for humanitarian supplies.

It had been nearly four months since Unita soldiers had kidnapped the group from Bongo.

Guards kept telling the prisoners they would soon be free, but no one believed them until one day, when the leader of Unita visited them in the camp.

After that, the things start to, to prepare for the, the release.

They say okay, tomorrow will be the, the day.

[Lisa Ling] They were loaded onto a truck and taken to the river that marked the border with Namibia.

They were loaded into a boat with an International Red Cross worker.

After four months of captivity, they left Angola and Unita behind them.

In this moment, uh, I, I was happy for one time.

But uh, my decision was not to leave from Angola.

I, ha ha, I, they take me from Angola.

Ha.

[Lisa Ling] The Sabates were met at the Barcelona airport by family, friends, and the press.

[Conchita] I was happy to come back.

I would hope to stay free, uh, was done.

[Ferran] But also, sadness for the, the people of Angola, in that situation.

A situation of, of, war, of insecurity, of lack of food, lack of drugs.

Of this memory, I was not, not, not happy.

For many, many nights, I dream that still I was in Bongo.

[speaking quietly in Spanish] [Lisa Ling] After spending some time recovering in Spain, the Sabates would go on to work in Tanzania for three years.

There, they treated some of the early cases of AIDS in the country.

It's also where their daughter, Elisenda, was born.

Victoria returned home to Argentina and started a new life.

Soon she was married and had a family of her own.

But she always felt her work at Bongo was left unfinished.

[speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] At Bongo, local nurses kept the hospital running as long as they could, but the civil war eventually engulfed the region.

When the war finally ended in 2002, it was estimated that 80 percent of Angolans lacked access to basic health care.

As the violence from the war came to a close, the hospital at Bongo slowly began coming back to life, and Victoria was given the opportunity to go back to Angola and finish the work that she and the Sabates had started.

[speaking Spanish] [speaking Spanish] [Lisa Ling] Today, the Sabates and their family live in Barcelona.

Their daughter, Elisenda, works as a pharmacist and enjoys babysitting her niece, Laura.

Their son, Ferran, is an engineer and now has a baby of his own.

I have a daughter.

She is now almost two years old.

[Lisa Ling] Conchita recently retired to spend more time with her granddaughter, and Ferran still practices medicine and teaches at the University of Barcelona.

Today, at Bongo, Victoria is the chief nurse and administrator of the hospital.

Her days are spent working to make Bongo what it once was, one of the best hospitals in Angola.

[speaking Spanish] [driving hopeful music] [driving hopeful music] This program was made possible by the Ralph and Carolyn Thompson Charitable Foundation, the Foundation for Adventist Education, and the Kendrick Foundation.