Maputo — In front of TV cameras, and without the slightest attempt by the police to stop them, an angry mob in the southern Mozambican city of Matola on Monday night trashed the home of a woman accused of human trafficking, and stole much of her property.

The cameras of the independent television station, STV, rolled as the looters piled the property of their victim, Estrela Mabunda, including a large refrigerator, onto their cars, and drove it away.

They did not drive her car, a Toyota Pajero away, but they smashed its windscreen and headlamps, and stole detachable parts such as the wing mirrors. A washing machine proved too heavy to steal and was abandoned in the yard.

The faces of the looters were caught by the cameras - indeed they did not make the slightest attempt to hide their identities. Yet by Thursday the police had yet to make any arrests.

The attack on Mabunda's house arose because a 14 year old boy, Alberto Nhatsave, claimed he had been kidnapped the previous month. Suspicion fell on Mabunda merely because Nhatsave said he had been playing with her children shortly before he disappeared, at around 10.00 on 15 June.

When Nhatsave reappeared on Monday, the story quickly spread through the Matola neighbourhood of Liberdade that he had blamed Estrela Mabunda for the kidnapping. Thus unsubstantiated claim sparked off the looting of Mabunda's house.

But when Nhatsave spoke to reporters from the daily paper "Noticias" he said he had been abducted, not by Mabunda, but by a South African. He said he had been playing with Mabunda's children in front of her house, when somebody grabbed him and pressed a sponge over his mouth and nose, containing a substance which sent him into a deep sleep.

When he awoke, he found that he was in Malelane, on the South African side of the border. Nhatsave said that the following day, 16 June, he managed to escape, while the kidnapper was speaking on his cell phone. He said that he managed to open the car door and jump out.

Nhatsave claimed that, because he speaks the local language, he was able to seek help from a man he found in the bush cutting firewood. He stayed in this man's home until Monday, when he caught a bus to Moamba, in Mozambique.

"When I reached Moamba, I phoned my cousin who came to fetch me", he said. "While I was with the kidnapper, I asked where he was taking me, but he never gave me a conclusive answer".

The story is highly suspicious. We are asked to believe that the friendly woodcutter looked after a frightened child for over a month, but made no attempt to hand him over to the South African or Mozambican authorities. And if the child was able to take a bus into Mozambique on 19 July, why did he not do so on 16 or 17 June?

Nhatsave's mother, Maria Madelena, claimed that everything indicates that the kidnapping was coordinated by Mabunda. Her sole evidence for this was that her son habitually played with Mabunda's children.

Mabunda told "Noticias" that she was the victim of her neighbours' envy. For she is a reasonably prosperous businesswoman, who has made her money out of cross-border trading.

Mabunda flatly denied having anything to do with the mysterious South African kidnapper. Furthermore, she claimed that does not known Nhatsave, and that her children do not play with him. Indeed, at the time of the alleged kidnap, they could not possible have been playing football outside her house. Mabunda said her children take the bus to school at 08.00 and do not come home until 16.00

"This is just pure malice, the result of envy and hatred", she declared. She linked the assault on her house with arguments she had with a neighbour, first about a fight in which her son had been involved, and secondly about the pipes carrying water to their houses. This woman sneered at Mabunda as "a newcomer" - for the neighbour is a native of the area, and Mabunda is not.

If the attack really had something to do with trafficking in children, "why did they need to vandalise my house? Why did they have to steal and destroy everything that my family has built?", she asked.

"I want justice, and I want those responsible for this punished", she declared.

The police are now, rather belatedly, guarding Mabunda's house. The Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) are said to be gathering evidence.