Maputo — Armed men attacked a camp of a South African construction company, WBHO, in the central province of Sofala on Monday morning, according to a report in the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique".

Seven armed men penetrated the WBHO camp, which is located along the main north-south road - the company is rehabilitating a stretch of the road between the Inchope crossroads, and Caia, on the south bank of the Zambezi.

The attackers kidnapped the foreman and forced him to take them to the house of the WBHO accountant. At gunpoint, they forced the accountant to open the company safe, and stole the money stored there (in US dollars, South African rands, and the Mozambican currency, meticais). The company has not revealed how much was stolen.

The thieves also took a parabolic antenna from the accountant's house.

The gunmen took 11 WBHO workers hostage. They took the hostages with them as they left the camp, but later set them free without harming them.

The police suspect that the gunmen included former WBHO workers, possibly people who had been expelled from the company. The head of public relations in the Maputo police command, Raul Cumbane, based this suspicion on the detailed knowledge the criminals had of the camp.

On the same day, at about 03.45 in the morning, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a vehicle at Goonda, also on the main north-south road. The driver, Andre Elias, died with a bullet wound to his head, but his brother survived the attack.

If the purpose of the attack was theft, the criminals were unsuccessful, since they withdrew without taking anything from the car.