Mozambique: Police arrested five over human trafficking with alleged buyers in Zimbabwe | Watch

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Mozambique: Police arrested five over human trafficking with alleged buyers in Zimbabwe | Watch

2:44 CAT | 17 Mar 2020

Photo: Miramar

Mozambican police have arrested five people on charges of human trafficking, the corporation’s spokesman in Manica province told Lusa today.

The victims are two minors, one of whom is an albino, and the five suspects include the children’s parents and two intermediaries, Manica police spokesman Mateus Mindu detailed.

In the first case, a 31-year-old woman was arrested on Monday, while waiting for a “buyer”, with whom she had negotiated the sale of her 13-year-old firstborn for a price of two million meticais (€27,000).

The woman took her eldest son from Chimoio, where she lived with two brothers, to Messica, some 40 kilometres from the capital of Manica, allegedly to sell him to a Zimbabwean businessman with strong commercial links in Mozambique.

In the second case, on Friday, a couple was detected and detained by PRM and Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) agents while attempting to close the sale of their eight-month-old albino baby for one million meticais (€13,000).

The couple has two albino children, and was going to sell one of them, allegedly also to a Zimbabwean buyer in the Macadeira area (Vanduzi). Two intermediaries were also detained.

“The buyers’ intermediaries made contact from Manica and arranged this meeting, where they were arrested,” Mindu said.

Mindu warned that the parents of the victims were found to be involved in both cases, and called on communities to be vigilant, and not hesitate to report this type of crime.

“We call on people not to stoop to this type of crime for survival,” Mindu stressed, adding that criminal proceedings have already been instigated against those detained.

The two new cases bring the number of attempted human trafficking cases in Manica since January to five.

Several operations to stop the network of traffickers and hold the masterminds accountable were ongoing, Mindu reported, and Mozambican and Zimbabwean police were hot on their heels.