Mozambique: Over 160,000 people in Manica may be affected by flooding
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Two children who had gone missing in the central Mozambican city of Chimoio, and were feared kidnapped, have reappeared, alive and well in a local nursery.
When the children, aged eight and 13, could not be found last Wednesday, rumours circulated that they had been seized by a gang trafficking in human body parts.
It was claimed that two severed human heads had been found in a local businessman’s house. The house was said to contain a secret hideout. These unfounded claims were enough to spark off a riot.
A mob gathered and set about destroying the businessman’s property, including three houses and a shop. The police were called on to intervene. They were forced to shoot into the air and to use tear gas to disperse the rioters. In the clashes, one person was shot dead, and three others were injured.
But the two children were unharmed. The spokesperson for the Manica Provincial Police Command, Mario Arnaca, told reporters that a citizen had found them wandering around the city suburbs, and had taken them to the Chimoio provincial nursery.
“After the riot, as promised, we did our job and discovered that the children had been found in the streets and taken to the nursery”, said Arnaca.
Arnaca insisted there had been no kidnapping – but there could have been an attempted abduction. For one of the children, in the presence of her father, told reporters that they had escaped from a car which picked them up from the 25th June neighbourhood, where they live.
“A car stopped and took us to the city”, she said. “When the car stopped and the driver got out, I opened the door and I ran away with the other girl. When we were tired of running, we sat on a pavement, and a woman appeared, and took us to a police station. We spent the night there, and the next day we went to the nursery”.
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