Breaking News: Bodies scattered near mass grave in Gorongosa, Mozambique

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Breaking News: Bodies scattered near mass grave in Gorongosa, Mozambique

11:48 CAT | 01 May 2016

At least 15 bodies are visible, left abandoned in the region of Gorongosa, near a mass grave reported to Lusa by farmers in an area which is heavily guarded by military, Lusa witnessed on site.

The presence of the military does not allow the access to the mass grave where, according to local peasants, lie over a hundred bodies but 15 dead bodies are visible in the vicinity, scattered in the bush and some of them naked.

Of the 15 bodies found by a small group of journalists on site, four were dropped in a small savannah, about 200 metres from the Macossa crossing to the interior, and others were left under a bridge near the National Road 1, the main road in Mozambique.

The place where these bodies were deposited is located after the bridge over the river Muare in the Gorongosa-Caia direction, and where illegal extraction of gold has been made, albeit timidly.

The corpses belong to young women and men, some recently left in place and others without clothes, in the presence of vultures.

Local authorities denied the existence of the mass grave which was reported to Lusa by peasants on Thursday.

But the witnesses reiterate their version. “It is true, we have seen the bodies,” said one of the peasants, who would not identify himself, telling how the group where he travelled was attracted by the strong smell of putrefaction exhaled by the corpses.

They were “throwing them in the hole, we got there and saw [the bodies] being eaten by birds,” described the peasant, without commenting on the origin of the dead, many of them also without clothes and in different states of decomposition.

According to the peasants, the mass grave, with a hundred corpses, is located in zone 76, between Muare and Tropa, in the administrative post of Canda, district of Gorongosa, a region that remains under the supervision of the military and police and that has been hit by clashes between the Defence and Security Forces and the armed wing of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo).

The administrator of Gorongosa denied on Friday the report of a group of peasants who had, on the previous day, assured Lusa that they had seen the mass grave.

According to Manuel Jamaca, a team from the district government had been sent to the site but found nothing and the Provincial Government of Sofala also denied the existence of a mass grave in the Gorongosa region.

Sofala police announced on Friday that it will launch an investigation to determine the veracity of the discovery.

Despite the denial, the Commission of Human Rights of Mozambique wants to ascertain the veracity of the reports stating that, if confirmed, it is a “very worrying” case, urging prosecutors to investigate.

The leader of the third Mozambican party in parliament, the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), has also demanded the involvement of justice and the Parliament in clarifying the peasants denunciation.

Daviz Simango, leader of MDM, told Lusa that the reports are in line line with information in possession of his party and the disappearance of people in the region, but that “the authorities will always deny.”

The group of peasants who led the journalists said that they are afraid to talk to people who are not from the area, like all local communities who avoid talking about any subject with strangers, even if the subject is not on security issues.

“With this military situation, things have changed,” said one of the peasants.