Mozambique: Locals find three corpses on banks of river Messalo – Lusa

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Mozambique: Locals find three corpses on banks of river Messalo – Lusa

11:31 CAT | 10 Aug 2022

in file CoM

The inhabitants of Tadavala, on the border between Macomia and Muidumbe districts, found three lifeless bodies on the banks of the Messalo river on Tuesday, local sources told Lusa.

“We were going to collect firewood in that area and suddenly, there was an abnormal smell. We went to check and found the lifeless bodies. We couldn’t recognise the faces, but they are not people from this community,” a local resident explained to Lusa.

The members of the community, located 81 kilometres from the district headquarters of Macomia, notified the local force, ex-combatants who support government forces in the fight against insurgency in Cabo Delgado in the communities.

“Of the three, one is female and others are men. We noticed that one of these men had signs of having been killed with a blow to his neck,” a member of the local force who was where the bodies were found said.

Almost a week ago, on the other bank of the Messalo River, an unknown group beheaded an elderly man, an episode suspected to be the work of rebel groups roaming the region, fleeing the military operations that have been unleashed by government forces.

The interior of Macomia district has been the scene of several clashes over the past few months, as part of operations by the Mozambican army, supported by Rwanda and the South African Development Community (SADC), which culminated in the assault on the main rebel base in that district: the Catupa base.

The Catupa base, described as the main refuge of the rebels in Macomia, was located in a dense forest in the district and housed insurgents who fled military operations for the recovery of Mocímboa da Praia in August last year, according to information from Mozambique’s armed forces on 23 July.

Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas but has been terrorised since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

There are 784,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and about 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

Since July 2021, an offensive by government troops with Rwandan support, later joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has allowed areas where there was a rebel presence to recover, but their flight has provoked new attacks in other districts used as a passage or temporary refuge.

Source: Lusa