MOZAMBIQUE CHILDREN BEHEADED DURING JIHADIST INSURGENCY, CHARITY SAYS
Children in Mozambique have been targeted by violence and some beheaded during a Jihadist Insurgency in Northeast Mozambique, Save the Children Charity said on Tuesday.
The UK-based Organisation expressed outrage and adding that it was "deeply saddened" by reports that children as young as 11 had been targeted in the violence that has claimed the lives of up to 2,600 people and displaced over 670,000 persons, according to Save the Children.
A mother who spoke on condition of anonymity told the charity that she hid with her three other children while her eldest son who is just 12-year old was beheaded.
Recounting the incident, the bereaved mother said "that night out village was attacked and houses were burned"
We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn't do anything because we would be killed too."
Another mother told the Charity organisation that she has been unable to bury her 11-year-old son who was killed by armed men as she was forced to flee.
“After my 11-year-old son was killed, we understood that it was no longer safe to stay in my village. We fled to my father’s house in another village, but a few days later the attacks started there too,” she said.
Jihadists locally known as Al-Shabaab have since 2017 launched a series of attacks in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado region. In the year 2019, the insurgents pledged allegiance to the Islamic State Organisation and have been accused of beheadings and desecration of corpses.
The Government forces have also been accused of human rights abuses.
Reacting to the killing and beheading of children, Chance Briggs, Save the Children's Country Director in Mozambique said: “reports of attacks on children sicken us to our core,” Chance Briggs, Save the Children’s country director in Mozambique, said.
“A major concern for us is that the needs of displaced children and their families in Cabo Delgado far outweigh the resources available to support them.
“Nearly a million people are facing severe hunger as a direct result of this conflict, including displaced people and host communities.”
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