Mozambique: Kidnap victim returns home after three weeks – Watch

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Mozambique: Kidnap victim returns home after three weeks – Watch

12:37 CAT | 27 Jul 2022

Image: TVM

Businessman Ebraim Seedat, who was abducted from his home in the city of Chimoio, Manica province, on July 7, returned home yesterday after three weeks in captivity, a police source told Lusa.

Ebraim Seedat, 60, was kidnapped by a group of three armed men outside his residence on Rua da Zambia, in an affluent suburb of the city, and reappeared early on Tuesday morning, police spokesperson Mateus Mindu explained.

“The businessman returned to family life on Tuesday morning and is in good health,” said Mindu, without giving further details of the circumstances surrounding his reappearance.

“A lot of information remains confidential, and we will provide details in due course,” he added.

A domestic employee at the victim’s residence told Lusa that the businessman “was pale” and “visibly traumatised”.

Ebrahim Miya Mahomed Seedat has dual citizenship (Mozambican and Portuguese) and is the owner of the Patel chain of commercial establishments ( Patel & Filhos, Lda.).

READ: Mozambique: Another businessman kidnapped in centre of the country

Some Mozambican cities, especially provincial capitals, have since 2020 been affected by a renewed wave of kidnappings, targeting mainly businessmen, especially of Asian origin, and their families.

Last week three people were arrested, including two police officers and a prison guard, in connection with the attempted kidnapping of the son of well-known Chimoio businessman, Amed Bolacho, a spokesman for the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) in Manica revealed.

This is the sixth abduction case in the last three and a half years in Chimoio alone. Victims often return home after a ransom is paid and without police intervention.

In an assessment of crime presented at the beginning of May, the Attorney General of the Republic of Mozambique said that kidnapping had been increasing, and that the criminal groups involved had cross-border connections, with cells in countries such as neighbouring South Africa.

According to Beatriz Buchili, 14 kidnapping cases were registered in 2021, against 18 in 2020, but there are doubtless other, unknown cases that escape official accounting.

In November, 2021, the Police of the Republic of Mozambique launched the formation of an ad hoc force to respond particularly to this type of crime, a group of officers to be trained by Rwandan specialists.