Mozambique: Authorities carry out operation in Cabo Delgado and detain journalist

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Mozambique: Authorities carry out operation in Cabo Delgado and detain journalist

2:31 CAT | 15 Apr 2020

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: AFP]

The Defence and Security Forces carried out an operation yesterday in the Paquitequete neighbourhood, in Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado, and a journalist was detained by the authorities for three hours, several sources have told Lusa.

The operation, whose purpose is still unknown, was carried out by agents from the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) and the Special Operations Group (GOE), who, in the early hours of Tuesday, took over some streets in the neighbourhood, searched residents and detained journalist Hizdine Achá, from the TV channel STV, allegedly for photographing the activities.

“They were searching cars and people, some of whom were forced to lie down on the floor. I went out to take pictures and one of the agents approached me and grabbed my cell phone. I was with them for almost an hour, and then we went to the police station, where we waited for two more [hours] until they gave me back my phone, but they forced me to delete the photos,” the journalist told Lusa.

The Paquitequete neighbourhood, located in the coastal area of Pemba, is home to many of those displaced by armed violence in the province, as well as fishermen who visit the coast of the districts that have registered armed attacks in the north of Cabo Delgado.

Lusa contacted Mozambican police spokesman in Cabo Delgado, Augusto Guta, who said that the journalist’s retention resulted from “a misunderstanding”.

“It was a case of a misunderstanding with the forces on the ground,” Guta said, without offering further details about the purpose of the operation in the neighbourhood.

Cabo Delgado province has been the target of attacks by armed groups which international organisations classify as a terrorist threat and which, in the past two-and-a-half years, have killed at least 350 people, as well as subjecting 156,400 people to loss of property and forced exile from their homes and fields.

At the end of March, the towns of Mocímboa and Quissanga were invaded by a group which destroyed infrastructure and hoisted their flag over a Defence and Security Forces of Mozambique barracks.

In a video distributed on the Internet at the time, an alleged jihadist militant justified the attacks as the prelude to imposing Islamic law in the region. This was the first message released by the alleged authors of the attacks, and was supposedly recorded in one of the villages they invaded.

Source: Lusa