Amnesty International accuses Mozambique armed groups of human rights violations in Cabo Delgado

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 Mocímboa 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.