Mozambique: More than 400 have already signed petition calling for rescue of kidnap victims
Image: Lusa
Police in South Africa have found the body of a kidnapped Portuguese-Mozambican woman outside the city of Mbombela (formerly Nelspruit), near the border with Mozambique, Portugal’s consul-general in Johannesburg told Lusa on Monday.
The diplomat, Francisco Xavier de Meireles, said that he had been informed on Saturday morning that police had found the body outside Johannesburg.
According to the information provided to the consular authorities, police found the body of Guitabali Samji, 52, a businesswoman with both Portuguese and Mozambican nationality, on the morning of Saturday 29 February at 7.30 a.m. (5.30 a.m. from Lisbon) near Witbank, about 140 kilometres from Johannesburg.
The body was found near the place where the alleged kidnappers agreed to hand the person over on Friday after alerting police the day before that she was “very ill”.
Last week, the alleged kidnappers were said to have demanded another ransom, of an undisclosed amount, but without the drop every taking place.
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The identity of the kidnappers remains unknown.
The city of Witbank (now Emalahleni) is 138 kilometres from Johannesburg and just over 200 kilometres from Mbombela [formerly called Nespruit], in Mpumalanga province, in the northeast of South Africa.
The entrepreneur, who was registered as a Portuguese national at the consulate in Maputo, disappeared on 15 October last year in Mbombela, where she had business.
The consul-general said that Portuguese officials had made representations to South Africa’s kidnapping investigation police in an attempt to obtain information and raise awareness of the urgency of the situation.
The case is under police investigation in South Africa with the diplomatic and consular representations of Portugal and Mozambique being kept informed.
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