Mozambique: Members of the public abort a kidnapping in Maputo - AIM report
Photo: Miramar
Unidentified gunmen murdered two people and injured a further six on Thursday morning in an ambush against three vehicles travelling along the country’s main north-south highway (EN1) in the central province of Sofala.
According to a report in Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, the attack took place at about 05.00, in the area of Muda Serracao, in Chibabava district.
The three vehicles were heading southwards. One was a bus, and one of its passengers was killed. The other vehicles were both trucks. In one of them the driver’s mate was killed, while the second truck was set on fire and completely destroyed, though the driver appears to have escaped with his life.
Of the six injured, all were treated in Gondola district hospital. A man with minor injuries was discharged, but the other five were kept overnight in the hospital.
The Chibabava district administrator, Luis Nhanzozo, said the attackers had fled into the bush, and are being pursued by the defence and security forces.
Traffic along that stretch of EN1 was briefly interrupted in the wake of the ambush, but Nhanzozo said it was flowing normally again later in the day.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the ambush, but it is believed to be the work of the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta”, a breakaway from the country’s main opposition party, Renamo, which has denounced Renamo leader Ossufo Momade as “a traitor”, and does not recognise the peace agreement he signed with President Filipe Nyusi on 6 August.
There has been a spate of ambushes on the main roads in Sofala and the neighbouring province of Manica. All are almost certainly the work of the Junta.
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