Mozambique: Mass Flight Over Alleged Army Abuses

(Johannesburg, February 23, 2016) – Mozambique’s government should urgently investigate alleged summary executions, sexual abuse and ill-treatment by its armed forces in Tete province, Human Rights Watch said today. At least 6,000 people have fled to Malawi since army operations began in October 2015 to disarm militias linked to Mozambique’s main opposition party, the Mozambique National Resistance, or RENAMO.
Several dozen asylum seekers at the makeshift Kapise camp in Malawi told Human Rights Watch in mid-February 2016 that they fled army abuses and fear returning home. They described seeing soldiers summarily execute their husbands and other villagers, or tie them up and take them away to undisclosed locations. In many of cases, soldiers torched homes, granaries and cornfields, accusing local residents of feeding and supporting the militias.