Extremists, government forces and a “private militia” supporting authority have indiscriminately killed hundreds of civilians in Mozambique’s troubled northeastern region, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday.
Violence perpetrated by armed Islamists in the gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado has left at least 2,600 people dead since 2017, about half of them civilians, according to a non-governmental organization called Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), Agence France- Press (AFP) reported.
The local population “is caught between the Mozambican security forces, the private militia fighting with the government and the armed opposition group known locally as” Al-Shabaab “- none of them respect their right to life or the rules of war,” said Amnesty regional chief Deprose Muchena. “All three have committed war crimes and caused hundreds of civilian deaths.”
Government officials contacted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) declined to comment and Interior Minister Amade Miquidade did not answer calls to her phone.
Authorities have previously denied that their soldiers have committed any atrocities in Cabo Delgado.
Amnesty said the analysis was based on interviews with dozens of internally displaced persons, as well as reviews of videos and images, including satellite images.
The watchdog said the government had hired a South African private military company, the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), after it “lost a number of battles” in its quest to regain control of the region.
Mercenaries have fired weapons from helicopters and dropped hand grenades indiscriminately, according to Amnesty.
AFP made several requests to DAG for comment but received no response.
Amnesty said it had tested a helicopter attack on a hospital in the port city of Mocimboa da Praia in June last year, and schools had been shot in other incidents.
It is said that it had verified a video of another incident in September, in which government forces hit a naked woman with a wooden stick, shot her 36 times and left her body on the highway.
In another obnoxious blindfold and security forces shot several men in Quissanga before dumping their bodies in a mass grave, Amnesty said.
After this attack, “government security forces took women to rape at the nearby base they had set up, where they also arrested, beat and executed briefly more men,” it said.
Extremists are also accused of heinous acts of violence with machetes, including numerous beheadings and desecration of corpses.
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