Militants accused of abducting 51 Mozambican children

Armed groups targeting parts of northern Mozambique abducted at least 51 children during raids in 2020, British charity Save the Children said in a report this week. It said the ‘abduction of children has become a new and alarmingly regular tactic by armed groups involved in the conflict’ and that the numbers involved were likely higher than its estimates. A report on the EWN site notes that it said children, most of them girls, were captured in Cabo Delgado province, where Islamist attacks have displaced about 700 000 people since the violence started in 2017. ‘Being abducted, witnessing abductions, experiencing attacks, being forced to flee from armed groups are extremely traumatising events for young children and adolescents,’ the charity's country director Chance Briggs said.