An armed group killed a village chief and his wife on Saturday in Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique, various sources in the Murrameya community said today.
According to figures released today by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 1,000 people, most of them children, fled as a result of the attack.
The village belongs to the administrative post of Hucula, in the Namuno district, adjacent to the Montepuez district, where an armed attack on a ruby mine 10 days ago forced the suspension of activities and the evacuation of workers.
Both districts are in the extreme southwest of Cabo Delgado, which was terrorist-free until September and is closer to neighboring provinces (Nampula and Nyasa) than to Pemba, the provincial capital, which is about 400 kilometers away.
“About 15:00 [14:00 em Lisboa] we were surprised by the group, which we took for terrorists, because of the way they acted,” said a local resident.
According to him, the group beheaded the village headman and his wife, set fire to an elementary school and a tractor belonging to the local agricultural association, causing the population to flee to the district center.
“We left the village because they are aggressive. They killed our headman, and we don’t know what awaits us,” the same source added.
Another local source said at least one child who left his parents during the attack has gone missing.
The population of the surrounding villages also began to flee to the district headquarters.
The IOM issued a warning from the Cabo Delgado Displaced Persons Registration Mechanism that 958 people left the Hucula and Machoca districts on Saturday and Sunday for the district headquarters.
“At the heart of the movement is fear and confirmed attacks by armed groups,” the warning said, listing 100 vulnerable displaced people, including pregnant women, the elderly and minors who have been separated from their families.
He adds that of the total number of fleeing residents, 60% are children.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been terrorized by armed violence since 2017, with the Islamic State extremist group claiming responsibility for some of the attacks.
The insurgency led to a military response a year ago backed by Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating areas near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have sprung up in the south of the region and in the neighboring province of Nampula. .
Over five years, the conflict has displaced one million people and killed about 4,000 people, according to the UNHCR, according to the ACLED Conflict Register project.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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