Mozambique: Woman’s execution by alleged soldier ‘barbaric’ – Top lawyers

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Mozambique: Woman’s execution by alleged soldier ‘barbaric’ – Top lawyers

7:58 CAT | 16 Sep 2020

Screen grab: Miramar

The Mozambique Bar Association (OAM) president on Tuesday classified video images of a woman being executed by alleged members of the Armed Forces as “barbaric”, urging the authorities to investigate the case.

“It is repugnant, that attitude is reprehensible because it is a barbarity,” Duarte Casimiro said at a press conference about the incident.

Insisting on the “repugnant” character of the action, Duarte Casimiro urged the competent state institutions to begin an investigation to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The OAM president pointed out that video footage of members of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) committing human rights abuses is becoming repetitive and is creating a negative image of the country.

Duarte Casimiro emphasised that the images do not show where and when the woman was shot at close range.

The OAM staff said that it was available to provide legal assistance to the victim’s relatives.

Following the images, Mozambique’s ministry of defence issued a press release in which it said that the close-range killing of a naked, defenceless woman filmed on the side of a road by men in military uniforms and machine guns should be investigated.

The video began to circulate on social media, presented as a portrait of the human rights violation situation in the conflict in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, between rebels and Mozambican forces.

It is about two minutes of continuous images, captured by one of the members of the group of armed aggressors in uniform speaking Portuguese.

On the edge of a paved road, the group begins by violently beating a woman who walks alone, naked, and then end up shooting her with a machine gun, hearing themselves in the end “we have killed Al-Shebab”, the name given in the region to the insurgents who have been attacking Cabo Delgado since 2017.

“The Defence and Security Forces (FDS) consider the images shocking, abusive, repugnant, horrifying and above all reprehensible in all its dimensions,” said the statement from the ministry of defence.

The video began circulating days after Amnesty International asked the Mozambican authorities to investigate alleged abuses by their forces in Cabo Delgado, based on other videos showing torture and victims of summary executions.

The ministry of defence responded by stating that the footage may have been taken by the insurgents the military are fighting, rebels who have already been filmed in Mozambican FDS uniforms on other occasions.

In the same response, the ministry said that it was open to all investigation to ascertain the truth and said it was in line with the promotion of human rights.

The confrontations in Cabo Delgado, triggered by forces classified as terrorists, have lasted for three years and are causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 1,000 deaths and some 365,000 internally displaced persons.