Mozambique: Former Renamo deputy murdered in Lichinga – AIM report

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Mozambique: Former Renamo deputy murdered in Lichinga – AIM report

8:33 CAT | 30 Nov 2020

Photo: Noticias

Unknown assailants on Thursday night shot dead two women in the northern Mozambican city of Lichinga, one of them. 56 year old Rosa Chukwa, a former parliamentary deputy for the country’s main opposition party, Renamo, according to a report on the independent television station, STV.

The second victim has not yet been named. The two women were travelling in a private vehicle in the centre of Lichinga, when they were intercepted by a group of men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols.

The assassins opened fire at point blank range. Rosa Chukwa died on the spot, while the second woman was still alive when she was taken to Lichinga hospital, where she died shortly afterwards.

The Niassa provincial police commander, Arnaldo Chefo, confirmed the murders. He said the assassins had been hired by someone to kill their victims, but did not know why. He said the murderers made their getaway in a car which has also not been identified. Witnesses say it was a Toyota Hilux

Rosa Chukwa was a Renamo member of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, between 2000 and 2005. She then left Renamo and joined the second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), which came into existence as a breakaway from Renamo.

Renamo national spokesperson Jose Manteigas told STV that, after she joined the MDM, Chukwa had no further dealings with Renamo.

That is not what senior Renamo figures in Lichinga say. One of them, Domingos Gundana, wrote on his Facebook page that Chukwa had abandoned the MDM, and had returned to Renamo, but as a symnpathiser, rather than a member.

He also said she was joint coordinator of a group of people suffering from diabetes, and this meant that she spent much of her time in Lichinga hospital,

A Facebook message from Chukwa’s son, Mateus Torres, blamed Renamo for his mother’s murder. He urged Renamo leader Ossufo Momade and his supporters “to stop making politics with AK-47 bullets. You are the ones who ordered this crime”.

Gundana, however, believed such accusations made no sense, since Chukwa had not been politically active in Renamo for many years.

A senior MDM source contacted by AIM also confirmed that Chukwa was no longer in the MDM, and had drifted back to Renamo.

Source: AIM