An gang linked to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) has since 2018 kidnapped and enslaved more than 600 women and girls in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province," the rights group said in a statement.
Some have been freed by Mozambican and foreign forces deployed this year to help quell the violence that has wreaked havoc in the region since October 2017.
But some are still missing, the rights watchdog said.
Women and girls were kidnapped during raids on towns and villages by the Lions of Islam known locally as al-Shabaab
...... the personification of Somali state failure..., although they have no known connection to the group with a similar name in Somalia.
The group force young women and girls to "marry" their fighters "who enslave and sexually abuse them" while some have been sold off to foreign Lions of Islam for between $600 and $1,800, it said.
"An unknown number of women and girls remain in captivity in Mozambique, facing horrific abuses daily, including enslavement and rape by al-Shabaab fighters," said Mausi Segun, HRW's Africa director.
HRW based its report on investigations including interviews with former abductees or their relatives, security sources and government officials.
The unrest that has plagued the gas-rich northern region of Mozambique has claimed at least 3,578 lives, including 1,575 civilians, according to US-based conflict tracking organization, ACLED.
More than 800,000 others have been displaced, according to government and UN agencies.
Since July, more than 3,100 African, European and US soldiers have been deployed to the Cabo Delgado province to quell the unrest.