Mozambique: Police accuse Renamo of murdering community leaders in Inhambane

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Mozambique: Police accuse Renamo of murdering community leaders in Inhambane

3:08 CAT | 02 Mar 2017

DW / Funhalouro district government headquarters

A community leader and his wife were killed and another community leader was injured on Sunday in Funhalouro, Inhambane province in an attack which police say was carried out by Renamo.

The dead are Ernesto Govene, secretary of the ruling party Frelimo (Liberation Front of Mozambique), and Fatima Muetui, the wife of community leader Azarias Massingue, who was seriously injured.

Inhambane provincial command police spokesman Juma Aly Dauto told a news conference that the perpetrators of the killings could be members of the country’s largest opposition party, Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance).

The attack took place on Sunday morning at the homes of the victims in Funhalouro’s 25 de Junho district. Authorities speak of ten armed men, some of whom were dressed in uniforms normally used by Renamo guerrillas.

“This lead us to believe that they are Renamo members who in the recent past have been conducting attacks in that area. They shot the 66-year-old local community leader, and they shot his wife dead, and then went to the house of the secretary of the local association and shot him dead,” Dauto said.

Police fear population displacement

“We are worried. We have a truce at the moment, but here [Renamo] still continues to launch attacks on the people. It is a huge concern for the Defence and Security Forces, but we are doing all we can to neutralize those individuals still on the mountain,” Dauto added.

“At this time, with residents plagued so, it is no wonder that displacement of the population to safer areas has occurred recently.”

Contacted by DW Africa, Renamo spokesman António Muchanga declined to comment. But in a written message he says the killings were not politically motivated. And that they may have been a personal settling of accounts. The police have already dismissed the hypothesis of a crime of passion.

Source: Deutsche Welle