Mayor warns youngsters against being lured by terrorists – Watch

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Mayor warns youngsters against being lured by terrorists – Watch

7:42 CAT | 19 Oct 2022

Screen grab: Conselho Municipal de Chimoio

The Mayor of Chimoio, capital of the central province of Manica, calls on youngsters to refuse being lured by ill-intentioned individuals into joining the ranks of terrorists in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

João Ferreira explained that the authorities of the Centro Hipico neighbourhood, on the outskirts of the city of Chimoio, recently aborted the recruitment of 14 youngsters who were being lured to join the ranks of terrorists.

According to Ferreira, some people of bad faith have been trying to persuade young people in Chimoio to abandon their communities and join terrorist groups under the guise of better jobs in the northern region of Mozambique.

“I would like to bring to your attention that in the north there are also people unemployed who want jobs. Therefore, we have to be wary of these people who come here promising better jobs because they can lead us into a not very good environment, they can get us into terrorism by giving us drugs which will twist our minds then it will be us Mozambicans causing harm to fellow citizens″, he warned.

Ferreira acknowledged there is a lack of employment opportunities everywhere; however, this cannot be used as an excuse for young people to abandon their families and join terrorist groups.

“Yes, there is an employment problem. We should try self-employment, we will try to see if more companies can come here to provide employment, we will try to connect more with agriculture, because employment is a worldwide problem, it’s not only a problem in Mozambique. There is lack of employment everywhere, but it is not for lack of employment that will convince to join war and terrorism,” he stressed.

Regardless of political affiliation the Mayor insists that one should never be carried away by proposals that threaten country’s sovereignty because the sole purpose of the terrorists is to destroy Mozambique, steal its wealth and divide its people.

He also asked both community and religious leaders to work closely with the population because they know exactly who the members of their neighbourhood are.

″I am asking you and everyone because we must be united these days. We must be united against terrorism and remain vigilant to those who enter our neighbourhoods. If we see strangers we should denounce them and check their movements because we can’t afford terrorism to come to Chimoio. We will not let ourselves be lured,” he stressed.

In his turn, the leader of Centro Hipico neighbourhood, Bernardo Canazache, revealed that last week, a woman of Zimbabwean nationality contacted some young people of a cultural group in the area, inviting them to allegedly travel to Inhambane where they would wait for employers who would come from Cabo Delgado to hire them to work in unnamed companies.

“They told me that they were to be taken by a Zimbabwean woman. I asked if they already knew where it (Cabo Delgado) was, and if they were given any money. They replied that they were hired by the woman and that they would be taken by white people to Cabo Delgado, and there were 30 of them,” he said.

The case is under investigation, but preliminary results indicate that the youngsters were already on the trafficking route for terrorist purposes.