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Mozambique: Armed Groups Burn Villages
[All Africa] Attacks by gangs in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado have killed at least 39 people and displaced more than 1,000 since May 2018. Hundreds of families fled their villages after suspected members of an armed Islamist group burned down their houses during nighttime attacks.The group implicated in the attacks is known locally as both al-Sunna wa Jama’a and al-Shabaab ...  an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia..., though it has no publicly known connection with the Somali group of the same name. Local activists told Human Rights Watch that more than 400 homes have been burned down in the past two weeks, displacing people in three districts. Mozambican authorities should investigate and provide assistance to those in need. "Armed groups should immediately cease attacking villages and executing people," said Dewa Mavhinga, Southern Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Mozambican authorities should assist those displaced and establish conditions that will allow them to return home voluntarily, in safety and with dignity." Human Rights Watch researchers visited the village of Naunde, in Mucojo town, Macomia district after an attack on June 5, and saw 164 houses, five cars, and scores of cattle burned. The residents said the attackers had burned a local mosque, including copies of the Koran and prayer mats, and beheaded a local Islamic leader inside the mosque. Human Rights Watch witnessed dozens of families carrying their belongings and fleeing the village. Human Rights Watch also spoke by phone with residents of villages that were attacked on June 6 and June 12, the most recent attack. Various sources in Macomia and Quissanga districts confirmed that hundreds of people were still fleeing their villages for fear of more attacks. One villager in Naunde said that the attackers caught a community leader: "When he realized they were looking for him, he tried to run away but one of the men chased him, grabbed him by the arm, held the machete, and cut his head off... there in front of everybody." The wave of violence in Cabo Delgado province began in October 2017, when suspected armed Islamists attacked a string of cop shoppes in the Mocimboa da Praia district, causing two days of lockdown in the area and a massive military response that led to the evacuation of villages. Following the attack, authorities closed seven mosques and detained more than 300 people without charge, including religious leaders and foreigners suspected of having links to the armed attacks in Palma and Mocimboa da Praia districts, which are about 95 kilometers apart. But attacks on villages continued sporadically. Army soldiers deployed to the town of Mucojo following the attack on the nearby village of Naunde told Human Rights Watch that since April, they had apprehended and handed over to the police more than 200 men suspected of having links to the armed Islamist group implicated in the attacks. The soldiers said some of those detained were local young men who were found in makeshift camps in the bush with machetes and Islamic teaching books. The men would not reveal their intentions or the names of their leaders, the soldiers said. "They don’t talk," one soldier said. "Whatever they are drinking in these camps seems to make them forget everything. Even if we threaten to kill them, they don’t talk." A soldier who appeared to command a small unit said that they had been advised by a local state prosecutor to detain suspects and hand them over to authorities with evidence of their crime. However, ars longa, vita brevis... he expressed reluctance to accept this directive. "Let the judges come to the bush and catch them," he said. "We will not waste our time. If we find them in the bush, we will kill them there." Posted by: Fred 2018-06-20 |
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