Mozambique: Relatives of missing Renamo member consider abduction hypothesis

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Mozambique: Relatives of missing Renamo member consider abduction hypothesis

1:43 CAT | 18 May 2018

Jonathan Suleimane, head of programmes at the Renamo provincial delegation in Zambézia has gone missing, and family members fear he may have been kidnapped for political reasons.

Suleimane has been missing since last Friday (11.05), but only now has the case has been made public. His father, Eugénio Suleimane, says he first thought the young man had gone out with friends, but as the days passed, he started to worry.

“First I went to the hospitals. Then I went to the first, second, third and fourth Quelimane police stations, looking for him.”

The family fears Jonathan was abducted for being a member of Renamo. His father says the young man had already received anonymous telephone threats.

“In September last year, he told me that he was receiving threats from people he did not know because of his Renamo membership. At that precise moment, I handed the case over to the authorities. I am waiting for the national criminal investigation services to investigate.”

Friends look in vain, police do not know anything

The president of Renamo Youth League in Quelimane, José Macuvá, is also worried about the disappearance, especially after several members of the party were threatened following Afonso Dhlakama’s funeral last week.

“On that Friday, he left his house, and on Saturday, when we realised that he was missing, because he is a colleague and a friend, we began our search. We went to mortuaries at the hospitals and searched in all the main roads of the city. So far, we have no information about his whereabouts,” Macuvá says.

Provincial police spokesman Miguel Caetano says he has not yet heard of the incident. He would not rule out the possibility of an abduction, but says there may be other explanations for the disappearance of the Renamo member.

“We [police] had a meeting, but it was not discussed. It may not even be a kidnapping,” Caetano says.

Suleimane’s father however said that he had already told the police about the disappearance, and that the case was sent to the criminal investigation division.

Source: Deutsche Welle