PH
An international rights group has urged Mozambique’s government to investigate allegations of arbitrary executions and sexual assault by the country’s armed forces.
Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that at least 6 000 people fled to neighbouring Malawi to escape violence between the government and the main opposition group in Mozambique.
The rights group has detailed refugees’ accounts of abuses allegedly committed by Mozambican soldiers tasked with disarming opposition fighters. Some refugees say houses were burned and relatives were killed.
The Mozambican news agency, AIM, says the government promised to restore peace and bring the refugees home.
After years of peace following a civil war that ended in 1992, tensions have again arisen between the governing Mozambique Liberation Front, known by the Portuguese acronym Frelimo, and the opposition Mozambican National Resistance, Renamo.
