Islamic militants in the African nation of Mozambique, believed to be linked to ISIS, have beheaded more than 50 people in a shocking massacre. It is also reported that they have abducted dozens of women and children and are likely holding them in slavery.
The gunmen attacked the village of Nanjaba, according to the Mozambique News Agency, while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ ‘God is great’ in Arabic. They fired from automatic weapons and set buildings on fire. Slightly later on the same day the village of Muatide was attacked. At Muatide gunmen entered the village and rounded people up, they then carried out the beheadings.
The beheadings were said to have been carried out on a local football pitch where their beheaded bodies were then mutilated with machetes.
Since 2017, a large number of Islamic extremist attacks have been carried out in the country, one of the poorest nations in the world, that have killed around 2,000 people and forced around 400,000 to flee their homes.
Muslims make up around 20% of the total Mozambiquan population. In April, another 50 people were shot dead by the militants in another village.
Security experts say the ISIS related group have recruited very poor and desperate individuals from rural communities, mostly from the Cabo Delgado region which is majority Muslim and where the recent massacres occurred. Islamic extremism in Africa has mostly been found in the Arab and Sahara nations and in east-Africa, particularly in Somalia. The ISIS related militants of Boko Haram ‘western education is forbidden’ have also caused havoc in the north of Nigeria where they have killed thousands and taken huge numbers of innocent women and children captive.
It is thought that ISIS is seeking to establish new international centres of influence after their defeat in the Middle East during the Syrian civil war and the capture of huge swathes of territory in Iraq.
The Mozambique state has called for international assistance to fight the Islamic insurgency and has put all of its military on stand-by to defeat the extremists.
Human Rights groups have also pointed out that the Mozambiquan army have also carried out atrocities in their battle against the insurgents, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extra-judicial killings.
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