Terror(ism) in Boane, Maputo province – Mozambique

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Terror(ism) in Boane, Maputo province – Mozambique

1:09 CAT | 11 Oct 2016

O País

Dozens of houses robbed in the same morning, 16 people injured, money and mobile phones stolen by a gang of 15 people. Another day of violence in Maputo.

The last day of September was marked by violence in two Boane overspill neighborhoods only 40 kilometers from central Maputo. A group allegedly composed of about 15 men, armed with firearms and other weapons, made a “dragnet” of dozens of homes, where, in addition to violently beating their victims, they stole money and cell phones.

“They found me in the living room door and started beating me. They had many weapons” said Graciete Fabião, who says she was tortured to hand over her 4,500 meticais savings. Even when the gang had the money and her mobile phone, the violence continued. She was even threatened with a firearm. “When they pointed the gun at me, there was a young man who said, ‘Let’s go, because this guy has arrived’. I think it was their boss, arriving in a car,” she said.

The targets were apparently chosen selectively, being a few kilometres away from the next house robbed.

During the assault, which is estimated to have lasted 30 minutes, the group tortured family members, threatening children with knives and took alcoholic and soft drinks as well as mobile phone rechargers from a tuck shop attached to the house,

“They beat me with an iron bar and then tied me up. I saw five men with guns; the others had irons bars and knives,” said one of the victims.

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Elsewhere in the same neighbourhood, the gang visited the home of Orlando Magalhães, a police, who was attacked so violently he suffered two broken arms. “In an attempt to force me to protect myself, they started hitting me with a crowbar and progressed to the inside of my house, where they attacked my wife, demanding money.”

The criminals obtained 8,700 meticais, but believed they could get more, as the house was also a tuck shop.

From the Magalhães residence they went to another less than a kilometer away, where they killed two pit-bull terriers and beat a housewife and her husband and son severely. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the badly bruised housewife said she narrowly escaped being raped. “(It was) so much an attempted rape that they left me with many bruises on my legs.”

The mayor of Boane, Jacinto Loureiro, is appalled by the attacks, which he describes as “atypical”. “There were about 15 to 20 people in the gang that invaded the neighbourhood. It is not normal for his to happen – we have not had this kind of crime before. They terrorized the population.”

Nobody has so far been detained in connection with the case, but the police have nonetheless been downplaying the number both of victims and gang members.

Source: O País