Mozambique: Police investigate Pemba assassinations – report

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Mozambique: Police investigate Pemba assassinations – report

10:25 CAT | 02 Mar 2020

File photo: DW

According to sources, the two young men whose bodies were found beheaded a week ago on the outskirts of Pemba, Cabo Delgado, may have refused to be recruited by the supposed jihadist insurgents.

Police are investigating the deaths of two young men on the outskirts of the city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, the France Press News Agency (AFP) said on Saturday.

According to the AFP, citing local residents, the two headless corpses were found on a road on the outskirts of the city on Sunday, February 23.

“Two young men were shot and beheaded near the jail where people accused of being insurgents are being held,” a local resident told AFP, on condition of anonymity, adding that “from the way they were murdered, we think it is an al-Shabaab job”.

Police confirmed the two deaths, but gave no details. “We collected the bodies for the morgue. We are working with forensic medicine to clarify the case,” local police spokesman Augusto Guta told AFP.

Meanwhile, a police source said the pair was killed for refusing to join the ranks of the jihadists..

“We have information that insurgents are chasing people who received money to join the attacks but then fled,” the source told AFP.

It was the first such attack in the city of Pemba and in southern Cabo Delgado. So far, the violence has mainly affected the northern parts of the province.

Armed attacks attributed to the jihadists in Cabo Delgado have already killed more than 700 people in the last two-and-a-half years, and displaced at least 100,000, according to the United Nations and humanitarian agencies.

The government of President Filipe Nyusi has on several occasions promised to eradicate “criminals” in the region and has launched a response, with the help of mercenaries from Wagner, a Russian private security company, but has so far failed in its efforts to stop the attacks.

Source: Deutsche Welle