Mozambique: Four sustain minor injuries in coal ship fire
Armed robbers hijack Nelspruit-Maputo bus just before SA border with Mozambique
10:11 CAT | 14 May 2023
FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Twitter]
South Africa just seven kilometres from the border with Mozambique on Thursday evening, a source from the carrier told Lusa on Saturday.
None of the passengers were injured, but goods were stolen and adults and children among the passengers left traumatised, said the same source from Cheetah Express.
The scheduled bus had left Mbombela (Nelspruit), a city whose services and commercial facilities many Mozambicans use, and was travelling to Maputo when the incident occurred.
At 18:45 p.m., after nightfall, the bus was seven kilometres from the Lebombo border when it came upon a line of trucks at a customs weighbridge, before crossing to Komatipoort and the Kruger national park.
The Lebombo – Ressano Garcia border posts are used by ferrochrome mines to export produce through the port of Maputo, and on some days hundreds of trucks gather, complicating circulation for other vehicles.
In the resulting traffic jam, 14 robbers armed with machetes, sticks, stones and firearms stormed the bus, and threatened the driver and passengers, stealing jewellery, passports, shopping and luggage, the company reported on Facebook.
This is the first time that Cheetah Express has been the target of such an attack, but there have been others on the same road, on the South African side of the border, the source added, calling for action by the security forces.
The carrier has announced a strengthening of preventive measures, including earlier departures from Mbombela and fewer stops, so as to cross the border before nightfall.
The episodes of violence on the South African roads that connect Maputo to Johannesburg and Pretoria are recurrent and have different motivations.
On Friday, the concessionaire of the N4 announced the temporary closure of a section of the road in Witbank, 100 kilometres from Pretoria, due to protests in that country related to the cost of energy.
“For precautionary reasons, Trans African Concessions (TRAC) , together with the authorities in South Africa, decided to close the road” at risk, with “people throwing stones and setting fire to vehicles”, said Fenias Mazive, director of maintenance at the concessionaire.
ALSO READ: Mozambique: Citizens advised to avoid travelling to South Africa using the N4 road
Source: Lusa
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