Minister says there are youths thrown out of homes among attackers in northern Mozambique

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Minister says there are youths thrown out of homes among attackers in northern Mozambique

2:17 CAT | 24 Sep 2018

File photo: Lusa

Mozambican Defence Minister Atanasio Mtumuke said on Saturday that the gunmen who attacked and partially destroyed the village of Ilala in northern Mozambique were youths expelled from home by their parents.

“These malefactors are children whose parents live in the villages. These parents do not want to receive their children [after kicking then out],” who as a result remain “in the bush,” he told Mozambican Television on the sidelines of a public ceremony in Maputo.

Mtumuke was speaking two days after a new attack by an armed group killed 10 people in Ntoni, Mucojo, in the district of Macomia, in continuation of the violence that has been going on for almost a year in the north of the country.

This scenario is based on information the minister said had been collected in an earlier attack on a neighbouring village, Ilala, on 7 September, in which houses were burned down but no casualties recorded.

“Running away from home is very natural. Imagine, a kid who has left home, how are you going to control him? This is what happened in Ilala,” he said, referring to 23 young men said to have followed this course of action.

“They have been identified – we have the list. The number is falling,” he said, adding that, however, “some are [in the course of] disappearing”, without elucidating further.

Deputy Minister of National Defence Patrício José also commented on Saturday, saying that “defence and security forces are working hard to bring security back to the province of Cabo Delgado” in statements to independent television channel STV.

“If we were not working on it, it would be much worse. Of course, the evildoers have their strategies, but we are working to stabilise the situation and live in absolute peace,” he said.

Several remote settlements in Cabo Delgado, 1,500 to 2,000 kilometres north of Maputo, have been attacked by unknown assailants since October 2017, causing dozens of deaths and the displacement of much larger numbers of people.

The groups attacking the villages have never claimed responsibility or stated their agenda, but investigators suggest that the violence could be linked to heroin, ivory, ruby and wood trafficking networks.

The attacks come as investments by natural gas oil companies in the region are rolling out, but have not as yet impinged on these projects.

Source: Lusa