Mozambique: Nampula parades child victim before press – Ikweli report

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Mozambique: Nampula parades child victim before press – Ikweli report

8:57 CAT | 22 Jul 2021

This photo has been changed to protect the child's identity. [Original photo: Hermínio Raja]

An eight-year-old boy living in Carrupeia on the outskirts of Nampula, was burned by his own father in collusion with his stepmother, allegedly for having eaten two badjias [typical pastries of the region, made with bean flour].

Cases of violence against minors in this part of the country have worsened since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Deprived of places to play, children spend more time at home, and those who should guarantee them protection are usually the ones who expose them to harm.

After this case was reported, the couple were apprehended by police from the 3rd Police Station, and then transferred to the 1st Police Station.

With no alternative but to admit his guilt, the child’s father, whose identity we omit on the presumption of innocence, said he was sorry for what he had done, arguing that he was possessed by Satanic forces to act with such violence against his own son.

A 26-year-old painter, the defendant is divorced from the victim’s mother, who lives in the Niarro district, near the Nampula dam, and who entrusted the custody and care of her son to her ex-husband.

“Last Monday I went to work, and came home,” the victim’s father related, “and found my wife telling neighbours that this child here at home stole again. I was a bit stressed and when I asked what was going on, she said the kid stole again. That got Satan into my head, and I took the kid and beat him up. Then I took the child and burned him with fire,” because “the mother said he stole badjia and cake, it seems that it was two [portions].”

The stepmother tells a similar version to that of her husband, and says that the minor is wayward, and does not to follow the instructions of his guardians.

Held at the 1st Police Station cells, the woman, who was presented to the press, admitted that what the boy had consumed was worth no more than two meticais.

“I was burned because I ate two badjias,” the boy said, with a sad face, amidst the armed police agents milling about the police station.

Uncomfortable at being in an unfamiliar place, the boy trembled in front of the journalists’ cameras and microphones, but managed to explain in Emakhuwa why he was not playing with his friends but rather writhing in pain from the burns inflicted on him by his father.

Journalists present witnessed undisguised the barbarity committed against that frail body, lacking all kinds of medical assistance, including nutritional assistance, babbling a few words to convey just one of the various situations children experience at the hands of their own parents – violence which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Nampula police spokesperson Dércio Samuel gave assurances that the couple would receive exemplary punishment.

“This couple mistreated this minor, claiming that he stole five meticais between 9 and 15 July of the current year,” Samuel said, appealing to the community not to avert their gaze from cases of this nature, but to fight such behaviour instead.

By Aunício da Silva

Source: Jornal Ikweli