Mozambique News Agency
Friday, January 14, 2011
In the last two weeks of December more than 700 Somalis and Ethiopians entered the country and applied for political asylum in Nampula province. But now there have been reports of people leaving the refugee centre and moving through the country.
Somalis have been reported in the district of Guru, in Tete province. The group composed of 18 Somalis was discovered after a traffic accident involving a truck in which they were being transported. The accident caused nine injuries with three people being seriously injured and taken to the intensive care ward of the provincial hospital in Chimoio.
A second group of 12 immigrants were stopped on their way to the city of Beira at a police checkpoint in Inchope, in the district of Gondola, Manica province. The group was detained by the police along with the driver of the vehicle, a Mozambican from Quelimane. The driver, Paulo Ricardo, said that he was not complicit in human trafficking, but was simply showing kindness to people he met at the crossroads of the town of Inhaminga, in Sofala province.
Two Somalis were also arrested in Catandica, in the district of Barue. A further arrest was made in the district of Manica on the road to Zimbabwe.
The Somalis have been detained in Chimoio. The Head of Migration Services, Filpe Cumbe, said that he is treating the case as one of illegal immigration, and after registering the Somalis, they will be sent back to the refugee centre at Maretane in Nampula.
Some immigrants who enter the country illegally have paid around 3,000 US dollars to gangs of human traffickers in order to reach Mozambique.
Many of these refugees settle for a time in Zambezia, Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces where they start small businesses. But some then disappear, and are believed to have made their way to South Africa.
Source: Agência de Informação de Moçambique (AIM)