Africa-Press – Mozambique. Two South Africans and one American have been in prison in Mozambique for three weeks for alleged “signs of support to terrorism” in Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, the lawyer for two of the detainees told Lusa yesterday.
Abílio Macuácuá said that the two South African citizens and the American pilot were arrested in Inhambane province, southern Mozambique, while loading food items and pesticides destined for an orphanage run by the Águas Vivas Church in Cabo Delgado’s Balama district into an aircraft.
“From what I’ve been told and what I’ve learned from other sources in Inhambane, my clients are paying the price of philanthropy, because they only wanted to help,” Macuácuá said.
The lawyer said that he represents two “retired elderly people, aged 71 and 69”, who travelled to Inhambane by car to spend their holidays there, one of them having agreed to deliver to the orphanage products collected by an organisation in South Africa.
“One of them agreed to take the goods, because he had already done volunteer work in Balama, and the other was simply his companion, who went to Inhambane on vacation,” Macuácua explained.
Macuácua said that the three detainees had meanwhile been “strangely and mysteriously” transferred to the maximum security prison known as ‘BO’, located in Machava, Maputo province.
“When I tried to find out, what I discovered was that they had been transferred to the BO for security reasons,” the lawyer said.
The two South African citizens themselves had no intention of travelling to Cabo Delgado and their involvement was limited to transporting the goods collected from South Africa to the aircraft in Inhambane, he continued.
Abílio Macuácua said that the goods for Balama had been seized at Inhambane airport during pre-shipment inspection.
“They would have had to be very naive to pass goods intended for terrorists through the airport scanners,” Macuácuá emphasized.
Contacted by Lusa, a spokeswoman for the United States of America (USA) embassy in Mozambique confirmed the detention of the American pilot in Mozambican territory.
“The US embassy can confirm that a US citizen has been detained in Mozambique. Whenever a US citizen is detained abroad, we are able to provide all appropriate assistance. The embassy is monitoring the situation, but due to privacy considerations, we have no further comments to make at this time,” the US embassy spokeswoman said in response to an email request from Lusa.
Lusa contacted the Mozambican police about the case, but the corporation has yet to comment.
Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas, but has been terrorized since 2017 by armed violence, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.
The insurgency has led to a military response since just over a year ago, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts next to the gas projects, but new waves of violence have emerged in the south of the region. and in the neighbouring province of Nampula.
In five years, the conflict has displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and around 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.
For More News And Analysis About Mozambique Follow Africa-Press
