Mozambique: Rockets launched from Tanzania seriously injure 12 in border village – residents

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Rockets launched from Tanzania seriously injure 12 in border village – residents

7:57 CAT | 03 Nov 2020

Image: Google Maps

A sequence of rockets launched over the Rovuma River from Tanzania to Mozambique seriously injured 12 civilians in a village in Cabo Delgado province last week, several residents of the border region told Lusa on Monday.

The rockets were allegedly targeting terrorist group camps entrenched in woodlands on the banks of the Rovuma River.

The heavy weapons fire attributed to the Tanzanian army hit the village of Mandimba on Thursday and Saturday, eight kilometres from the Nangade district headquarters in the north of Cabo Delgado, an area that is home to thousands of displaced persons from terrorist attacks, one resident told Lusa.

“The ‘rockets’ reportedly began to be launched by Tanzanian troops after the attack on Kitaya,” a village in Tanzania. The attack has been vocally attributed to the ‘al-shabab’ [name given to the rebels] “from Mozambique”espite the fact that Tanzania Police Inspector Simon Sirro told the press that arrests had been made immediately after of “both locals [Tanzanian citizens] and foreigners in connection with the terrorist incident”.

Rockets were fired “almost every night, but on Thursday 29th, the village of Mandimba” was hit with seven civilians were seriously wounded, a resident, Badrune Abede, told Lusa.

The rockets continued on Friday 30th and targeted the same village.

“After firing on Thursday and Friday, on Saturday at 11:00 [09:00 in Lisbon] they fired more which fell on the same village,” with five other people suffering serious injuries, said Rassul Saide, another resident.

“We don’t know what the motivations are, whether it’s a way to scare off the insurgents, or a way to defend themselves from attacks or retaliation, we don’t know for sure”.

Another survivor said that the Tanzanian army’s shooting caused panic among the residents and forced many displaced people to leave Mandimba village and settle in Nangade headquarters.

Some of the injured were treated at the rural hospital in Nangade and others were taken to Ntwara hospitals in Tanzania because of the severity of their injuries.

On 14 October a group of terrorists operating in Cabo Delgado attacked the village of Kitaya in southern Tanzania, an attack claimed at the time by the ‘jihadist’ Islamic state group and confirmed by Tanzanian police eight days later, claiming that a group of 300 jihadists led the attack on the village on the border with Mozambique.

Source: Lusa