MAPUTO,
Mozambique
Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday again accused the armed groups carrying out attacks in Cabo Delgado and Mozambican government forces of human rights violations in the northern Mozambican province.
“Hundreds of civilians have been unlawfully
killed in Mozambique by the armed group known locally as ‘Al-Shabab’,
government security forces and a private military company contracted by the
government,” the non-governmental organisation (NGO) said in a newreport on the armed conflict in
northern Mozambique.
The report, entitled “What I Saw is Death:
War Crimes in Mozambique’s Forgotten Cape”, is based on interviews with 79
displaced people from 15 communities affected by the conflict since March last
year, when the rebels carried out a major attack on the town of MocĂmboa da
Praia.
Although it has never officially confirmed
it, according to Amnesty International, the Mozambican government reportedly
hired the “Dyck Advisory Group” (DAG), a private South African military
company, to deal with the incursions of the armed groups.
“DAG operatives fired machine guns from
helicopters, threw hand grenades indiscriminately into crowds and also
repeatedly fired at civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and
housing,” the organisation said, citing 53 witnesses.
“Residents of Cabo Delgado are trapped
between Mozambican security forces, private militias that are fighting
alongside the government and the ‘Al-Shabab’ armed opposition group,” commented
Deprose Muchena, AI’s director for Eastern and Southern Africa, accusing all
three parties of committing “war crimes, causing the deaths of hundreds of
civilians.”
AI pointed, by way of example, to a video
that circulated in September showing men in military uniforms beating a woman
who was walking alone, naked, and who they then ended up shooting in the back
as she fled, with several bursts of machine gun fire.
In the case, the Government has always
maintained that the images had been “fabricated” by insurgents, considering
that the people who appear in the video are not from the Mozambican Armed
Forces.
AI called for the Government to urgently
investigate the alleged “war crimes”, warning that the authorities are failing
to guarantee the safety of citizens in that region.
“AI has previously presented evidence of
attempted beheadings, torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners, the
dismemberment of alleged ‘Al-Shabab’ fighters, possible extrajudicial
executions, and the transportation and disposal of large numbers of corpses in
apparent mass graves”.
Armed violence in Mozambique’s northern
province, home to Africa’s largest private multinational investment for natural
gas exploration, is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 2,000 deaths
and 670,000 people displaced, without housing or food.
The violence broke out in 2017, some of the incursions were claimed by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State after 2019, but the origin of the attacks remains under debate.
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