Mozambique: Kidnapped businessman freed after more than two months in captivity
O País
Unidentified assailants have kidnapped the owner of a maize processing company, Pembe-Mocambique, in the southern city of Matola, reports Friday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.
The attack occurred at about 09.00 on Thursday morning, when the victim was driving into the street that provides access to the company. Half way down the street, he suddenly found his path blocked, when two vehicles, one in front and one behind, boxed him in.
One eye-witness told the paper “I saw four people, one of them armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. When the criminals approached him, he shouted for help. I shouted too, to alert security guards in the vicinity. Some of them stepped forward, but then retreated”.
When the gang tried to drag their victim from his car, he resisted. They then hit him with the gun, and he seemed to lose consciousness. “They carried him, put him in their car, and then they left”, said the witness. “The victim’s car was blocking their route, and they still had time to move it. After all this, they fired a single shot”.
A Pembe worker criticized the inaction of the security guards. “When it all happened, I went to call out the guards”, he said. “But they were afraid. They said they had no guns, just truncheons, and that their guns were stored somewhere inside the company. I ask myself, how can these security guards work without their equipment?”
No company official was willing to talk to the paper, and its reporter was even unable to obtain the name of the victim.
This is the latest in the series of kidnappings of business people in Mozambican cities that began in late 2011.
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