adminMaputo – Some of the more than 3,000 refugees fleeing renewed fighting in Mozambique have accused government troops of killings, sexual assaults and razing villages suspected of harbouring opposition fighters, according to a journalist who visited the refugees in Malawi.
The Mozambican government denies the charges.
More than 20 years after the end of a decades-long civil war, sporadic fighting has again flared up between the government and fighters loyal to the opposition forcing growing numbers of refugees to cross the border into neighbouring Malawi.
Mozambicans who have fled to Kapise village in Malawi’s southeastern Mawanza district say that they are escaping an undeclared war across the border in Mozambique’s northern Tete province, said Fungai Caetano, a Mozambican journalist working in the area for the Malacha newspaper.
At least 3,100 Mozambicans have fled to neighbouring Malawi since mid-2015, most of them women and children, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. Refugees arriving in Malawi told aid workers that government forces burned down villages believed to harbour opposition Renamo fighters, UNHCR spokesperson Karen de Gruijl said in a statement. UNHCR said it has not been able to confirm the accuracy of these allegations.
Some Malawian aid workers estimate that the number of Mozambican refugees could be as high as 4,000 including those living in other villages. – AFP
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