Armed forces recover Sabe locality from self-styled “Naparamas”

Maputo, 25 Apr (AIM) – The Mozambican armed forces (FADM) have taken control of Sabe locality, in Morrumbala district, in the central province of Zambezia, after it had been in the hands of people who called themselves members of the Naparama peasant militia for the previous two months.

According to FADM officers cited by the independent television station STV, it took the army two weeks of fighting before state control over Sabe could be restored. The FADM found that the self-styled Naparamas were holding 280 women and children hostage in what had once been a base of the former rebel movement, Renamo.

The hostages suffered sexual violence. Some of the women said their captors had raped them in front of their husbands. The FADM also recovered goods that had been stolen from local villagers.

The authorities do not believe that the armed group in Sabe are genuine Naparamas, but are merely using the name.

The original Naparamas were a self-defence militia that operated in parts of Nampula and Zambezia provinces in the late 1980s, when they defended their communities against Renamo, in an informal alliance with the armed forces. They used rituals which they claimed gave them magical powers, and supposedly made them invulnerable (although this claim was dented, when their first leader, Manuel Antonio, died in a hail of Renamo bullets in 1990).

After the 1992 peace agreement between the government and Renamo, the Naparamas faded from sight. But in recent months, groups calling themselves Naparamas have reappeared. However, this time they are treating the defence and security forces as enemies, rather than allies. Occasionally they have proclaimed allegiance to former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane.

The FADM says that Sabe locality has now been liberated and returned to state control. Troops remain on the ground to intercept those they call “the enemies of peace”.
(AIM)
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