Maputo — The Mozambican Police (PRM) has collected 33 military explosive devices in Beira city and the neighbouring district of Dondo, in the central province of Sofala, following the death last week of one person and injury of two others as the result of a detonation.

According to the PRM spokesperson in Sofala, Dércio Chacate, cited in Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Notícias', the devices collected will be submitted to study in order to assess their degree of danger.

"The obsolete devices will be rejected and the remaining ones will be taken to competent institutions to be observed', he said.

During Mozambique's years of warfare, first against the Portuguese colonial regime, and then against the Rhodesian and South African racist regimes, it became one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.

In 2015, Mozambique was declared free of land mines, after two decades of intensive mine clearance. But this did not mean that every last piece of unexploded ordnance had been detected and destroyed.

The residual explosives are still in the Mozambican soil, and still pose a potentially lethal threat.