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MAPUTO (Reuters) – Mozambique’s military condemned the apparent execution of a naked woman by men in military uniforms, shown in a video, where she is beaten with a stick before being shot in the back while trying to flee.
In the unverified images, which circulated Monday, the group mocks the woman, referring to her as ‘al-Shabaab’, a local term for an Islamist insurgent group that has been operating in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado. since 2017, with no known link to the Somali group of the same name.
One hits her on the head and body with a stick before others shoot and, they say in the video, they kill her on the side of the road.
In a statement released late Monday, the military, involved in a battle with insurgents in the province, which also hosts highly successful gas projects being developed by large oil companies such as Total, said it considered the images shocking and gruesome, and “above all reprehensible”. .
“The FDS (Defense and Security Forces) reiterate that they do not agree with any act of barbarism that supports the violation of human rights,” he said, requesting an investigation into the authenticity of the video.
The images come amid allegations of abuses by government soldiers in Cabo Delgado. After an escalation in the insurgency, which saw the capture of a key port city in August, and the response of security forces, reports and videos of beatings or other abuses have become increasingly common.
Last week Amnesty International said it had verified videos showing attempts to behead, torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners, the dismemberment of suspected opposition fighters and possible extrajudicial killings.
The government dismissed the accusations, saying that the insurgents regularly pose as soldiers in an attempt to confuse national and international public opinion.
Zenaida Machado, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, called for an investigation and said that such acts, if committed by soldiers, sowed distrust in the population and strengthened the insurgents’ narrative.
“It is the worst case of treason,” he said, adding that frightened people should not flee from insurgents only to find themselves in danger from those who are supposed to keep them safe.
(Reporting by Manuel Mucari in Maputo and Emma Rumney in Johannesburg; written by Emma Rumney)
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