Mozambicans Haunted By Insurgency's Horrors

Montepuez, Mozambique, March 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Mar, 2022 ) :Her severed head was placed in front of their door.

Her tongue had been cut out -- punishment for daring to talk back to the insurgents terrorising northern Mozambique.

Two years after her sister-in-law's death, the scene still haunts Zara Alifa Assumane, 62.

She fled her home in Mocimboa da Praia after the killing and now lives in a camp in Montepuez, 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.

"I'm still terrified, I can't stop thinking about it," she said, her hair wrapped with a red-chilli-patterned headscarf.

When the militants showed up near her home, they ordered everyone outside.

"My sister-in-law spoke back to them, so they decapitated her," Assumane recalled.

"They placed her severed head in front of our house door and then they cut off her hands and placed them on her body.

" The mutilations took place in front of the eyes of her son, who was then abducted by the insurgents.

Life is quieter now. The camp for displaced Mozambicans has grown to house thousands of people. While aid agencies are providing food, sanitation and water, a local economy is springing up.

Barbers and tailors have set up shop, and even accept mobile money payments. Children sell eggs laid by hens reared in the camp.

A shack with a rooftop satellite dish advertised the day's entertainment: the "Barcelonas vs Napoles" football match.

All around, roosters crow over the Mozambican rap blasting from speakers powered by solar panels.