Steel thieves strip Mozambican railway line

The Mozambican national railways company continues to lose steel from its lines.

Latest reports indicate that millions of dollars of steel has disappeared in the southern province of Gaza, after thieves stripped a railway line there.

Radio Mozambique reported on Monday that the Xai Xai-to-Manjacaze railway line had been stripped of railway line steel and safety clips worth more than $8-million since the beginning of the year.

However, the station said the company had arrested eight people who were found with more than 350 pieces of steel believed to have been cut from railway installations.

The men were in police detention while investigations were under way, the station said.

Stolen steel and other materials easily find their way to scrap yards from where they are sold.

Reports of vandalism on railway lines were also reported earlier this year—on the northern railway line linking the port of Nacala with the commercial city of Nampula.

At the time, authorities said they had lost more than $90-million-worth of materials, which included safety clips binding the rail line to sleepers, thus leaving the lines suspended.

Several arrests were also reported in the northern provinces and railway guards were reportedly making routine patrols on the lines, which also serve the land-locked countries of Zambia and Malawi.—Sapa