Mozambique: Business leaders want to meet government about wave of kidnappings

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Mozambique: Business leaders want to meet government about wave of kidnappings

9:14 CAT | 23 Jan 2024

in file CoM

Mozambique’s Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), the country’s largest employers’ organisation, wants to meet with the government before taking a position on the latest cases of kidnappings, a source from the organisation told Lusa on Tuesday.

Today, for the second time in two days, the CTA postponed a press conference it had called to comment on the wave of kidnappings that have recently hit Mozambican cities.

Speaking to Lusa, a source from the organisation said that the postponement was due to the failure to hold a meeting with the government to discuss the impact of this type of crime on the business environment and the economy.

“It’s a routine meeting with the government, but in view of recent developments, the impact of kidnappings on the business climate and the economy was to be discussed,” said the same source.

The meeting with the executive is important for businesspeople to express their position, he continued.

The source pointed out that the CTA has already spoken out publicly about the consequences that kidnappings are having on investment and the country’s economy.

In November, the organisation called for “harsher” prison sentences for kidnappers and no possibility of bail to stop these crimes.

On Saturday, a Mozambican businessman, the first known victim of kidnappings in Mozambique in 2011, was kidnapped again in Maputo by a group of four men who fired several shots into the street, according to various sources.

The kidnapping was confirmed to Lusa by an official source from the Police of the Republic of Mozambique in the city of Maputo, who reserved further information for later.

However, publicly released video surveillance images show the moment the businessman was kidnapped as he was leaving a building in his car at around 07:30 local time (05:30 in Lisbon).

In the same images, it is possible to see that the group, armed with firearms, went so far as to fire several shots into the street on Ho Chi Min Avenue, in the centre of the city, in the face of opposition from security guards and the presence of people nearby.

The victim, who was dragged into the kidnappers’ vehicle, is one of the owners of Armazéns Atlântico, who escaped from captivity after being kidnapped in June 2011, the first known case of its kind in Mozambique, other sources said.

🚨 vídeo que circula nas redes sociais sobre o rapto, há bocado, na cidade de #Maputo, do Calu dos armazéns Atlântico. Homens armados dispararam com AK47 enquanto cometiam o crime. Consta que é a segunda vez que ele é sequestrado, sendo que a primeira foi em 2011. #Mocambique pic.twitter.com/mfxgdBJOWr

— Alexandre Nhampossa (@AllexandreMZ) January 20, 2024

A week ago, a shop manager was wounded in the abdomen during a kidnap attempt that was thwarted by locals who threw stones at the perpetrators, police spokesman Leonel Muchina told Lusa at the time.

“Unfortunately, the victim was hit in the abdomen, but he is out of danger and safe, following the actions of the locals,” said Muchina.

A petition launched about a month ago, addressed to the governments of Mozambique and Portugal, calls for measures to rescue the citizens in captivity, appealing to them “not to let these victims fall into oblivion”, and has gathered more than half a thousand signatories.

In the early hours of 18 December, Mozambican police arrested three people involved in the kidnapping of a 26-year-old Portuguese-Mozambican woman who had been held captive for 50 days. The victim was kidnapped outside her home in the centre of Maputo on 1 November by three armed men, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had previously confirmed that it was following up on this case and of another Portuguese-Mozambican citizen, who was also the target of an attempted kidnapping in the capital a few days later.

In November, Mozambique’s Central Office for Combating Organised and Transnational Crime (GCCOT) brought charges against three defendants allegedly involved in the kidnapping and death of a 57-year-old man in December 2022.

One of the defendants is a former member of the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic), and another is an employee of a provincial justice department who had been sentenced to 23 years in prison for involvement in other crimes, including kidnapping, but acquitted at second instance, the GCCOT said in a statement.

Source: Lusa