Many of those missing after June 27 attack may be in the hands of terrorists – MediaFax

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Many of those missing after June 27 attack may be in the hands of terrorists – MediaFax

3:50 CAT | 09 Jul 2020

Photo: Pinnacle News

It is not known, for sure, how many people, including women, teenagers and young girls, were abducted by the insurgents in the last and most violent seizure of the municipal town of Mocímboa da Praia, in the north of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, MediaFax reports.

The fact is that many people are still missing, believed to have been abducted by the terrorist gang.

“The truth is that many people were kidnapped by the group, probably for forced marriages, or to join the ranks, or for forced labour,” local sources believe, adding that almost everything that permitted a decent life in Mocímboa da Praia no longer exists.

A trader who has been taking refuge in Montepuez since the March attack told mediaFAX that he had been told that, in his own Unidade 28 neighborhood, children had been kidnapped, including his wife’s younger brother.

A citizen now displaced to the town of Mueda says that she experienced the most difficult moment of her life in Mocímboa da Praia, when she was unable to resist the abduction of three paternal cousins. She also speaks of the mistreatment that she and her three-year-old child were subjected to during the three-day occupation of the town.

A bricklayer from the Nanduadua neighbourhood told us that, after four days, he managed to locate his grandmother, his two children and his second wife, but had been unable to locate his Grades 7 and 8 teenage daughters.

The insurgents deliberately took with them children old enough to serve as child soldiers, young men and young women and some adults. The elderly, children under ten and pregnant women were not abducted.

Many people who remain are still unable to find missing relatives. It is known, for example, that, on the 28th, the insurgents took many hostages to the home of a businessman named Imo, but then removed them to a still-unknown destination.

Fotos do @news_pinnacle retratando parte do rastro de destruição deixado depois da última invasão à vila de Mocimboa da Praia, ataque reivindicado pelo Estado Islâmico. #Mocambique pic.twitter.com/uBdyFbAkkx

— Alexandre (@AllexandreMZ) July 2, 2020