Mozambique: Terrorists rape three women raped in Nangade district | Lusa

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Mozambique: Terrorists rape three women raped in Nangade district | Lusa

2:51 CAT | 24 Aug 2022

Image: Google Maps

Local sources told Lusa on Tuesday that five members of armed groups terrorising the province of Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, raped three women in the Nangade district last week.

The alleged rapists held the victims captive and carried out the acts between the 18th and 19th, the same sources said.

The women fell into the hands of the alleged terrorists when they went to the forest to collect wild fruits.

The victims are from the community of Nambedo, 20 kilometres from the centre of Nangade district.

Due to the famine ravaging the district, people are forced to go deep into the forest to collect wild fruits, said residents of Nangade.

The victims said that the men threatened to kill them if they did not agree to have sexual relations with the abusers.

Another source said that the population alerted the “local force” – a militia that combats armed groups in Cabo Delgado – of the three women’s disappearance.

The “local force” carried out searches, but did not find the victims.

The women eventually returned alone.

Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas, but, terrorised since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

There are 784,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and around 4,000 deaths, according to the conflict registration project ACLED.

Since July 2021, an offensive by government troops with Rwandan support, later joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), allowed areas where there was the presence of rebels to recover, but their flight has provoked new attacks in other districts used as a passage or temporary refuge.

Source: Lusa