Police in Mozambique are killing and torturing people with near total impunity, according to a report by Amnesty International released on Tuesday. "Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill, and the weak police accountability system allows for this," Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme, said.
Up to 15 illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa were trafficked every day through Maputo’s Mavalane International airport to South Africa, the Mozambican media reported on Saturday. O PaÃs said that this was done with the involvement of officials from the police, airports security, immigration and customs officials, and private airport security guards.
Mozambique’s target of 8% economic growth this year is realistic despite floods and cyclones which hit the country this year, a World Bank official said. The World Bank’s Mozambique director Michael Baxter also said inflation, which stood at 8,4% in 2007, could be kept in single digits in 2008.
A Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe, which was turned away from South Africa, is heading to Angola in hopes of docking there, the transport minister of Mozambique said on Saturday. The ship left South African waters on Friday after a court refused to allow the weapons to be transported across South Africa.
A new coal thermal power project already approved by the Mozambican government in the north-western province of Tete could provide solutions to the power crisis in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, which is looking to Mozambique to solve the crisis.
Mozambique and South Africa on Friday agreed to speed up work on new energy-production projects to benefit both countries, South African Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said. This was among several issues discussed at a one-day binational commission in Maputo, also attended by President Thabo Mbeki.
South Africa’s state power utility is near a deal to buy more electricity from Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa development in a bid to ease an energy crisis threatening Africa’s largest economy, a Mozambican official said on Tuesday. Eskom is negotiating to buy an additional 250MW of electricity per day from Hydroelectrica de Cahora Bassa.
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has fired his defence minister barely a week after the sacking of some top military officers. In a terse presidential statement on Wednesday, Guebuza said he had replaced Tobias Dai with businessman Fillipe Nhussi.
Mozambique criminal investigation police have arrived in South Africa to negotiate the extradition of a woman alleged to be a child sex-slave trafficker, news reports said on Tuesday. The woman is accused of enticing Mozambican girls across the border to Pretoria where they are used as sex slaves.
About a million people have suffered the effects of floods, cyclones and heavy rains across Southern Africa in the last year, the United Nations said in a statement issued on Tuesday. ”In total, local authorities estimate that 987 516 Southern Africans have been affected adversely by rains, floods and cyclones since October last year.
The Nampula provincial government in Mozambique will need at least -million to reconstruct infrastructure in five districts destroyed by Cyclone Jokwe, Francisco Mucanheira, the provincial permanent secretary, told Radio Mozambique in a report broadcast on Saturday.
More than 8 000 Mozambican nationals living illegally in South Africa were repatriated to their country in March, one of the highest monthly figures after a visa-waiver agreement was introduced in April 2005. In February, at least 3 577 illegal Mozambicans were repatriated through the Ressano Garcia border post.
Wild animals killed at least 133 people and seriously injured 50 in Mozambique last year, the Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday. ”This is a very high figure, but lower than the 144 of last year,” departmental official Tomas Zimba said, confirming that the figures were contained in a ministry report.
The Mozambican government has made an urgent appeal to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help more than 60 000 people left destitute when Cyclone Jokwe hit northern and central parts of the country. The WFP said in a statement it would begin distributing food to needy communities early next week.
Cyclone Jokwe, which has wreaked havoc in Mozambique, was downgraded on Friday to a tropical depression, allaying fears of a damaging hit to the tourism town of Vilankulo. However, the cyclone, now heading towards Madagascar, still had Mozambique’s coastal regions on yellow alert.
Violence at the hands of security forces, lynchings and vigilantism against criminals, are tarnishing Mozambique’s human rights record, according to a new report by the United States. The US State Department’s country report on human rights, launched in Maputo, said there had been a rise in vigilante killings.
As tropical cyclone Jokwe threatened the tourism districts of Vilankulo and Govuro on Wednesday, the government of Inhambane province advised business owners and residents to take precautions. The state broadcaster reported that the owners of tourism establishments near the coast were being encouraged to close their businesses.
Tropical cyclone Jokwe battered parts of Mozambique for a third day on Monday, killing at least eight people and destroying thousands of homes in the northern Nampula province, Radio Mozambique reported. Four districts were being lashed by heavy downpours and strong winds of up to 200km/h, said the broadcaster.
Tropical cyclone Jokwe lashed northern Mozambique on Sunday, killing at least one person and destroying over 500 homes, a meteorological official said. Mussa Mustafa, head of Mozambique’s National Meteorological Institute, said the cyclone, which swept through part of Madagascar last week, is expected to intensify by Monday.
A tropical cyclone hit northern and central Mozambique on Saturday, destroying homes and cutting power lines, state media reported. Cyclone Jokwe lashed central Mozambique before hitting the northern coastal province of Nampula, travelling with winds of up to 130km/h, Radio Mozambique said. No casualties have been reported and the extent of the damage is not yet known.
Zimbabwean orphans Evans (13) and Edmond Mahlangu (8) crossed a mountain range on foot to get to Mozambique where they are slowly recovering on life-saving Aids drugs in short supply back home. ”We walked for a day in the mountains. We had to keep quiet because of the guards,” recounted the boys’ 17-year-old sister, Emmaculate.
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/ 25 February 2008
Prudent fiscal and monetary policies during 2007 have kept inflation under control in Mozambique, the International Monetary Fund said in a statement on Monday. ”We congratulate the Mozambican authorities on their strong commitment to sound economic policies and for an impressive economic track record over the last years.
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/ 21 February 2008
Inefficiency at one of the border posts between South Africa and Mozambique is a key constraint to accelerated growth of trade and investment between the two countries, the Maputo Corridor Links Initiative (MCLI) said on Thursday. MCLI chief operating officer Barbara Mommen said delays in the movement of cargo through the Lebombo/Ressano Garcia border post was costly
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/ 18 February 2008
An intense tropical cyclone is threatening to strike already flood-hit Mozambique on Tuesday, the country’s National Meteorological Institute (Inam) said on Monday. Inam said in a statement Cyclone Ivan, a category-four storm, had strengthened over the Indian Ocean and was likely to cause damage when it reached the coast.
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/ 12 February 2008
Thousands of Mozambicans have clashed with police in another wave of protests over the rising cost of living in the booming but impoverished Southern African nation, state-owned radio reported. Maputo was rocked by street demonstrations last week that saw angry crowds loot shops, destroy vehicles and burn electricity poles.
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/ 8 February 2008
The rapid spread of HIV/Aids is posing a huge threat to Mozambique’s future growth and the sustainability of its poverty-reduction programmes, according to a World Bank report. The report, published in January, noted that the high costs of procuring medicines and caring for those with the disease was plunging most families further into poverty.
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/ 7 February 2008
In an incident recalling the birth of a baby in a tree during floods in 2000, a woman in Mozambique was rescued after giving birth to triplets on a flooded islet in the Zambezi River. Maria Jose (37) was rescued by emergency services on January 30 from a small island in the Zambezi around Mutarara district.
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/ 7 February 2008
The Mozambican government announced on Wednesday that it was scrapping a planned increase in bus fares as the death toll from riots sparked by the price hikes rose to three. Calm had returned to the streets of Maputo on Thursday after the riots, which residents said were the most serious since 1975.
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/ 6 February 2008
Mozambican authorities warned on Tuesday that flooding will worsen in Southern Africa when a major dam on its borders opens its floodgates and Namibia counts the toll of floods in its northern areas. The Kariba Dam, on Mozambique’s border with Zambia and Zimbabwe, is expected have at least one of its floodgates opened on Monday.
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/ 1 February 2008
Mozambique’s poverty-alleviation programme this week received a boost following the approval of a further -million loan by the World Bank. ”The council of executive directors of the World Bank has approved a credit for the International Development Association to the value of -million,” the bank said in Maputo on Friday.
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/ 29 January 2008
After rain comes sunshine — if you’re willing to seize the chance of a new life. Mozambique is trying to convince tens of thousands of people in low-lying areas who fall victim each year to floods during the summer rainy season to permanently resettle on higher ground.
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/ 29 January 2008
At least 15 000 children under the age of five have been displaced by the torrential floods in Mozambique, a global agency working with children said on Wednesday. ”In most disasters, including these floods, children tend to suffer the most,” said Unicef spokesperson Thierry Delvigne-Jean.