Cabo Delgado Attacks: More than 50 Mozambicans killed by Islamists

More than 50 people have been beheaded in northern Mozambique by militant Islamists Cabo Delgado, state media report.

The militants turned a football pitch in a village into an “execution ground”, where they decapitated and chopped bodies, other reports said.

Several people were also beheaded in another village, state media reported.

The beheadings are the latest in a series of gruesome attacks that the militants have carried out in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province since 2017.

Up to 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 have been left homeless in the conflict in the mainly-Muslim province.

The militants are linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, giving it a foothold in southern Africa.

The group has exploited poverty and unemployment to recruit youth in their fight to establish Islamic rule in the area.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa immediately come in and said the country is ready to help the neighboring country fight the insurgency that’s raising alarm across the region.

Mnangagwa took to Twitter on Tuesday to voice support for Mozambique’s government after police in Mozambique announced the militants beheaded more than 50 people in the northern part of the country.

“These acts of barbarity must be stamped out wherever they are found,” Mnangagwa said.

The gunmen chanted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”, in English), fired shots, and set homes alight when they raided Nanjaba village on Friday night, the state-owned Mozambique News Agency quoted survivors as saying.

Two people were beheaded in the village and several women abducted, the news agency added.

A separate group of militants carried out another brutal attack on Muatide village, where they beheaded more than 50 people, the news agency reported.

Villagers who tried to flee were caught, and taken to the local football pitch where they were beheaded and chopped to pieces in an atrocity carried out from Friday night to Sunday, privately-run Pinnancle News reported.