According to a report carried by the independent television station STV, the gang, consisting of two black men and one of mixed race, threatened with a pistol the driver of the car carrying the child and his mother, as the car arrived at the house of a relative.
The driver, Maite Paulo, said “it was all very quick. They didn’t shoot, they just threatened us with death”.
He said the car had driven from the family home in the Palmeiras neighbourhood. “I suppose they followed us from Palmeiras. When we were arriving in Esturro, we didn’t see any car parked nearby. When I switched off the engine, for the woman and her son to leave the car, those men appeared with a gun”, he said.
“They hit me, and threatened the mother”, Paulo added. “Then they took the child and seized the mother’s cell phone”.
Shortly afterwards officers of the Criminal Investigation Police detained a man who had been drinking at a nearby stall, and who had made repeated phone calls, possibly to members of the kidnap gang.
Meanwhile, the Maputo police have not yet been able to trace any of the three victims of kidnappings over the past week, all of them citizens of Asian origin, namely Kishoor Chootalal, Nasser Momad, and Subschash Chandra (who is a cousin of Chootalal).
Post published in: Africa News