In a shocking revelation from Mozambique, militant Islamists have massacred unarmed villagers on a football field, waving atrocities to establish a new caliphate in southern Africa. More than 50 people were beheaded in northern Mozambique by jihadists, local media reported. The villagers were gathered in a football pitch, where the militants decapitated them, then chopped their bodies into pieces and abducted women in a fresh gruesome attack in Mozambique.
According to the state media reports, villagers were trying to escape the violence, but the militants caught them and executed. The attacks took place on Friday and Saturday, where the homes of villagers were set alight.
"They burnt the houses then went after the population who had fled to the woods and started with their macabre actions," Bernardino Rafael, the head of Mozambique's police, told a press conference.
The ISIS link
BBC reported that some of the gunmen chanted "Allahu Akbar" while raiding the villages and abducting some of its women. The report further added that many villagers in the neighbourhood Muatide were also executed by the militants, who are believed to have links to ISIS.
"Police learned of the massacre committed by the insurgents through reports of people who found corpses in the woods," said an officer in the Mueda district. "It was possible to count 20 bodies spread over an area of about 500 metres (yards)."
The gruesome beheading is the latest in a series of attacks carried out by militants in Cabo Delgado province since 2017, which has killed up to 2,000 people and 430,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Muslim province.
Mozambique government has sought international help to curb the insurgency. It has appealed for specialised training for the troops to fight back.
