15 January 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican police last week arrested 163 foreigners accused of illegally mining precious stones in Barue district, in the central province of Manica.
According to Pedro Cossa, spokesperson for the General Command of the Mozambican police, speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the group was almost entirely from west Africa. It consisted of 68 Malians, 52 citizens of Guinea-Conakry, 20 Senegalese, 10 Gambians, four people from Ivory coast, and three from Sierra Leone. In addition there was one person each from Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Congo, Tanzania and Germany.
Cossa said the police seized 199 kilos of precious stones, five vehicles, 98 mobile phones and a large amount of foreign currency (27,320 US dollars, 7,400 South African rands, 2,500 Zambian kwacha, and 50,000 Kenyan shillings).
Some of the foreigners were expelled from the country via the borders with Zimbabwe and Zambia. The rest will be repatriated from Maputo.
Cossa said the police had planned the operation carefully, undertaking reconnaissance of the illegal mining operations. They were thus able to arrest all those involved and seize their equipment. Cossa said there were Mozambicans involved too, but he gave no further details.
As for the destination of the precious stones, Cossa said that some were smuggled to South Africa and others to Europe.
Mozambique is very rich in mineral resources, said Cossa, but it also has very long and porous borders, that are difficult to control. He pointed in particular to the border with Malawi, which is 1,500 kilometres long.
The Interior Ministry, said Cossa, "is investing in training so that we can put more men along the border to prevent and control illegal entries".
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There are losts of foreigners still here in mozambique. The government have deal with this seriously especially in the department of Bilhete de Identidade (Identity Cards) its too easy to get mozambican documents as compared to other countries. Plse lets unite to minimise this.
Alberto Moisés Panganai
Chimoio