Scores Killed As Unrest Spread In Mozambique Amid Storm and Elections

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

MAPUTO (Worthy News) – A manhunt was underway Thursday for over 1,500 prisoners who escaped in conflict-stricken Mozambique, where at least 56 people were killed since Monday after earlier Christians were attacked, police and human rights watchers said.

The upheaval came while police officers and protesters clashed in the latest wave of unrest over a presidential election that demonstrators claim was rigged by the governing party.

At Maputo Central Prison, which housed 2,500 inmates, more than 1,530 prisoners escaped, a police commander, Bernardino Rafael, said at a news conference.

Thirty-three prisoners were killed and 15 others wounded in a confrontation with guards trying to prevent detainees from fleeing, he added.

“Within the next few hours,” Rafael said, “150 of the escapees were recaptured by the authorities,” suggesting most are unaccounted for.

Tensions escalated this week after the nation’s top court on Monday upheld the election result in favor of Daniel Chapo, the candidate for Frelimo, which has governed Mozambique since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

ISLAMIST FIGHTERS

The political instability was expected to lead to more pressure on Christians in the north of the African country, where Islamists killed at least ten more Christians in the closing days of November, Worthy News reported.

Fighters from Islamic State Mozambique (IS-M) attacked a Christian village in the Ancuabe District of Cabo Delgado, the worst affected province, “slaughtering six,” said Barnabas Aid, a Christian charity supporting believers in the area.

“Four others were captured and killed in the neighboring province of Ituri,” the group told Worthy News.

Footage shared with Worthy News showed what witnesses described as “Terrorist men with guns approaching a village across dry and dusty land.”

In another attack on November 27, IS-M group fighters burned homes and church buildings in the Chiúre District of Cabo Delgado, but no casualties were reported, Christians said.

The unrest comes as Mozambique struggles to recover from Cyclone Chido. The country’s National Institute for Natural Disasters said the storm’s death toll has risen to 120 since it made landfall a week ago.

TOLL RISING

The death toll has reportedly nearly quadrupled from initial reported figures as rescue workers reach isolated rural areas.

Most of those who died were in the province of Cabo Delgado, where hundreds of thousands of people, including Christians, had already fled their homes after years of attacks by the insurgent group backed by the Islamic State.

The country’s Natural Disaster Institute said the storm has affected more than 450,000 people.

Ahead of this turbulent Christmas season, Christian charity Barnabas Aid had asked Christians to “Pray for an end to the violence in Mozambique.”

Ask “that our brothers and sisters, and all who are at risk of attack by Islamists, will be allowed to live in peace,” Barnabas Fund said.

“Pray also that the Lord will comfort the bereaved in their time of sorrow,” the group added in remarks shared with Worthy News.

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