Mass grave with more than 100 corpses discovered in central Mozambique

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mass grave with more than 100 corpses discovered in central Mozambique

9:09 CAT | 28 Apr 2016

A group of farmers discovered on Wednesday a mass grave with more than one hundred bodies in Zone 76, in the administrative post of Canda, Gorongosa district, in central Mozambique, one of the farmers who made the discovery told Lusa today.

The grave was discovered in an area that was used for sand extraction for the rehabilitation of the N1, the main road of Mozambique, in a place close to an illegal extraction of gold mine, now abandoned due to the escalation of military violence in the region.

“The trench has about 120 bodies, some already turned into bones and others still decomposing,” told Lusa one of the farmers, without specifying if the bodies had bullet marks, though saying that they suspect the corpses had just been unloaded by vehicles due to manouevering signals on the site.

Although there was no evidence linking this trench to the current military crisis in Mozambique, another farmer who was at the scene recalled the wave of persecution and executions for political reasons and that the region has been the scene of fighting between the military wing of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party and government forces.

“There are no visible military traces and some of the bodies are naked,” described a farmer.

Speaking to Lusa today, Manuel Jamaca, administrator of Gorongosa, neither confirmed nor denied the discovery of the trench, calling on the group of farmers to contact the authorities to assist in the investigation of this case.

The government and Renamo have been accused each other of killings and abductions of its members, while military clashes in the centre of the country intensified in recent months.

Mozambique is experiencing a political and military crisis characterized by clashes between the defence and security forces and the armed wing of Renamo and attacks in several sections of the main roads of the country in the central region, attributed by authorities to the opposition party.

The crisis was triggered by Renamo’s refusal to recognize defeat in the general elections of 2014 and by its demand to govern in the six provinces where it claims victory at the polls.

Source: Lusa