Three Policemen Murdered in Maputo

Three Mozambican policemen were murdered and two were seriously injured in two separate ambushes by unidentified gunmen on Thursday night.

According to Pedro Cossa, spokesperson for the General Command of the Mozambican police, the first attack was against a police motor-cycle on patrol which carried two members of the elite Anti-Crime Brigade.

The gunmen ambushed the two policemen on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue in central Maputo. Cossa said that seven individuals, carried in two vehicles, a Volswagen and a Hyundai, without number plates, drove up to the motor-bike and opened fire, at point blank range, at the policeman in the passenger seat.

The gunmen drove off into the night. Their victim died on the spot, but his colleague survived to report the attack and sound the alarm.

About fifteen minutes later, said Cossa, a second patrol that had begun hunting the gunmen came under attack in the Polana-Cimento neighbourhood, near the bars and stalls of the Museu informal market. This time the assassins opened fire on a vehicle carrying six policemen. Two died, two were seriously injured, and two escaped unharmed.

Cossa said the murderers also stole the firearms of their victims in the second attack.

He said that it was likely that the gunmen had been stalking the police, and had probably followed the police vehicle from the moment that it left the Maputo second precinct.

These attacks bring to six the number of Maputo police officers who have been murdered in the space of a month.

Sources: Allafrica - 13.03.2010