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New incident in Ponta do Ouro: Mozambique complains of border breach by South African military
5:49 CAT | 01 Jul 2019
File photo: Noticias
A South African military officer breached the border with Mozambique on Saturday at the same point in Ponta do Ouro where two weeks ago members of South African forces killed two Mozambican agents, a police source said in Maputo.
“A South African military man was surprised [by a patrol] at the site where two [Mozambican] border police officers were killed on 16 June,” a Mozambican police source is quoted by the Mozambican Information Agency as saying, Lusa reports.
According to the same source, the man ran away into South African territory when he became aware of the patrol’s approach.
The incident was reported to the Mozambican High Commission in South Africa in order to notify the authorities of the neighbouring country.
According to the PRM, a similar case of border breach by South African military personnel was at the origin of the deadly incident on the 16th of laast month.
Noticias reports today that “a new incident involving the violation of Mozambican territorial space has taken place again on Saturday, on the border at Ponta do Ouro, Maputo province, when a South African military officer was surprised at the location where two members of the Mozambican Border Police were shot dead on 16 June by agents of the South African Defence and Security Forces”.
According to Notícias “an authorised PRM source said that, at about 6.30 a.m., on the left flank near Marco 13, the site of the fatal incident, a three-member Mozambique Border Police patrol team surprised a South African military man in Mozambican territory. Sensing the approach of the patrol, he fled back to South Africa.”
Still according to the same Notícias report, “it is suspected that the South African uniformed agent was going to remove the photographs of the Mozambican Border Police agents deposited at the site, and even to erase all traces of the incident, in order to jeopardise ongoing investigations”.
South African military authorities have asked the PRM for more time to investigate the June 16 incident, in which two Mozambican border police officers were mortally wounded.
The reasons given relate to the complexity of the crime making it impossible to advance any response so far, without however mentioning any date on which such results may be available.
Mozambique’s Commander-in-chief of Police Bernardino Rafael had given July 1 (today) as the deadline for the South African Defence and Security Forces to submit a preliminary report on the Ponta do Ouro border incident.
The date was set due to dissatisfaction with the fact that, more than ten days after the shooting of the police officers, the South African Armed Forces had still not yet presented any preliminary explanation of what had happened.
Source: Lusa / Noticias
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