Mozambique: Unidentified assailants ambush trucks in Maringue – AIM

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Unidentified assailants ambush trucks in Maringue – AIM

7:57 CAT | 09 Apr 2025

Image via LiveNews48

Unidentified assailants on Tuesday morning ambushed and set on fire two trucks in Maringue district in the central Mozambican province of Sofala.

According to eye-witnesses cited by the independent television station STV, the attacking group consisted of eight people, one of whom was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. The others carried no firearms and were armed with machetes.

They ordered the drivers out of the trucks, but did not harm them. One of the trucks was carrying tubes, but the other was a transporter laden with five light vehicles. Hence, the total number of vehicles destroyed in the attack was seven.

The ambush occurred on the main north-south highway (EN1) in Nhamapadza locality, about 300 kilometres from the port city of Beira.

During the closing stages of the war of destabilisation, Maringue housed the headquarters of the apartheid backed Renamo rebels, and the Nhamapadza area was extremely dangerous.

But there has been no Renamo military activity in Maringue since Renamo leader Ossufo Momade signed a peace agreement with the then President, Filipe Nyusi, in August 2019.

The followers of former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane are not known to be active in Maringue, and Mondlane, in his meeting with President Daniel Chapo on 23 March, agreed to put an end to violence by his supporters.

The area still plagued by violence is the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where gangs of islamist terrorists are continuing to launch raids in several districts. But Cabo Delgado is hundreds of kilometres from Maringue and distance alone would seems to rule out the jihadists as possible culprits for the Tuesday ambush.

In the wake of the ambush, a police unit was sent to Nhamapadza. Traffic along the road was temporarily halted, but was flowing normally again by Tuesday afternoon.

Source: AIM