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Mozambique: Kidnap victim released – AIM report
7:18 CAT | 13 Jun 2022
FILE - A view of Beira. [File photo: O País]
Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) on Thursday announced that kidnappers have released 19 year old student Safiyah Saleji, who was abducted in broad daylight in the central city of Beira on 18 May.
She was abducted close to the Mozambican Catholic University (UCM), in Ponta Gea neighbourhood, in the company of a friend who witnessed the whole incident.
“The girls were coming from the UCM and as they were passing by a grey Toyota Ractis car drew up slowly next to them”, said a witness, quoted by Radio Mozambique, adding that “the kidnapping was very fast and “didn’t take more than two minutes.”
Other witnesses explained that the kidnappers “were inside a gray car. They fired a few shots in the air as a way to convince the victim to surrender.”
A Sernic spokesperson, cited in Friday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”, said Safiyah was released by the kidnap after her family paid a ransom. The size of the ransom has not been disclosed.
The Beira Anti-Kidnapping Movement (ARB), a civil society body set up in protest against he police inability to deal with the wave of kidnappings, announced on its Facebook page, “our university student is back with her family after three weeks in captivity. We wish much strength and courage for you, Safiyah”.
Other kidnap victims are still in the hands of their captors. This is the case, for example, of 20 year old Hafez Huzeifa, and the 24 year old son of businessman Farook Ayoub, both of whom were kidnapped in Maputo in April, and have not been heard from since.
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Source: AIM
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