Mozambique: Armed trafficking not religion behind attacks – Investigators

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Mozambique: Armed trafficking not religion behind attacks – Investigators

8:01 CAT | 22 May 2018

Armed groups that have attacked villages in the north of Mozambique are at least partially commanded from Tanzania and their job is to protect the illegal trafficking of the region’s resources a study presented in Maputo on Tuesday said.

Some members of the groups get training abroad from militias with connections to terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab from Somalia, said the first systematised work on the contact points between the recent violence and that kind of organisation.

The illicit trade undertaken with the aid of the armed groups is worth millions of euros a week just in timber trafficking, but they also deal in charcoal, rubies and ivory investigators João Pereira, Salvador Forquilha and Saide Habibe said today.

The three authors of “Islamic Radicalisation in the North of Mozambique” conducted 125 interviews during three visits to Cabo Delgado province following the attack on Mocímboa da Praia, on 5 October 2017.

The trafficking gangs also involve members from Vietnam and China.

Source: Lusa