The authorities in Mozambique have promised to investigate a video showing people dressed in army uniforms beating and killing a naked woman in the restive gas-rich Cabo Delgado province. The defence ministry condemned the footage as “horrifying” and vowed to “ascertain their authenticity”.
Mozambique has been battling an Islamist militant group in the north for three years. The group – known locally as al-Shabab, or the youth – have an Islamist agenda, but they are building on decades of local frustrations about unemployment, rigged elections, corruption and violence.
The militants, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, have launched a series of attacks on villages and towns in the area over the past three years, killing more than 1,500 people and displacing at least 250,000, news agency Reuters reports.
Cabo Delgado, is home to one of Africa’s biggest liquefied natural gas projects. Exxon Mobil is a major investor in the development of natural gas projects worth $60bn (£45bn) off the region’s coast.
