Mozambique: Four accused of murder, mutilation of children in Gurué – Watch

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Mozambique: Four accused of murder, mutilation of children in Gurué – Watch

10:27 CAT | 12 May 2020

Photo: Miramar

The Mozambican police have arrested four people in the district of Gurue, in the central province of Zambezia, accusing them of the grisly murder and mutilation of two young children.

The victims were two brothers, three and eight years of age, named only as Dino and Dercia. They were kidnapped and taken to a tea plantation where they were strangled to death and then dismembered.

The boys were abducted on 4 May and their bodies were discovered three days later.

Cited by the independent television station, STV, the spokesperson for the Zambezia provincial police command, Sidner Lonzo, said he had no doubt that the killers were part of a gang trafficking in human body parts. He believed that the crime involved more people than the four arrested.

According to Oscar Muchuane, a doctor at the Gurue district hospital, the bodies of the murdered children were missing their arms and other, unspecified body parts. It is suspected that the body parts were to be sold for use in black magic rituals

Among those arrested are the stepfather and an uncle of the two boys. One of the killers confessed to the murders, but the other three deny any involvement.

One of them supposedly travelled from the neighbouring province of Nampula to pick up the body parts for which the murderers were to receive 12,000 meticais (177 US dollars).