Church insists organ-trading claims are true

The Roman Catholic Church in Mozambique’s northern Nampula region on Thursday insisted its claims of a human organ-trafficking network operating in the province and targeting children were true.

Reacting to news reports suggesting the church had lied, the Archbishop of Nampula, Tome Makhweliha, said in a statement: “We reject all mechanisms being used to silence the church efforts to denounce the trafficking of children, assassinations and mutilations of corpses.

“We declare as false all the information that insinuates that the church is divided and distant from those who, on its behalf, denounced these crimes from the very beginning,” the statement added.

The church demanded a continued probe to bring the alleged criminals to book.

A Danish woman, Tania Skyette, and her white Zimbabwean husband, Garry O’ Connor, accused of trafficking human organs in Mozambique by the church, say they have been persecuted for eight months most probably in a bid to grab land.

The couple, who have a farm near Nampula airport, say the origin of the charges could be land-related, fuelled by local or church politics.

The first accusations surfaced in July last year by nuns living in a convent near the couple’s farm.

The nuns also drew up a list of about 50 children who had disappeared between September and November last year and spoke of “mutilated bodies on public roads”.

In six months, meanwhile, there were three probes that failed to come up with any evidence regarding the allegations.

The last enquiry conducted by the deputy attorney general and a forensic expert examined the cases of 14 children who had disappeared and conducted tests on three exhumed corpses but failed to come up with anything.—Sapa-AFP