Vatican City, March 29, 2020: A Mozambican bishop has decried the deaths of 64 Ethiopians from asphyxiation as tragic, senseless and inhuman.
On March 24, a container truck was stopped by Mozambique’s immigration authorities in the province of Tete. It carried 78 people from Ethiopia, 64 of whom were found dead. They had died of asphyxiation, as they were inside a metal shipping container, with no ventilation.
“The young people who died still had much to give to humankind,” Bishop Diamantino Guapo Antunes of Tete told Vatican News’ Portuguese Africa Service. He decried the traffickers transporting humans in such deplorable conditions.
The remains of the 64 illegal immigrants were buried March 25, at a cemetery in Tete, some 1,450 km north of Maputo, capital of Mozambique. The Ethiopian embassy was said to have been in touch with the Tete provincial migration office.
The Ethiopian victims are believed to have boarded the shipping container in Malawi headed for Tete, a town located on the Zambezi River. Fourteen people were said to have survived the ordeal. It is not uncommon for illegal Ethiopian migrants to be smuggled to South Africa via Mozambique in such circumstances.
The 14 survivors were also screened for the deadly coronavirus and are now quarantined Tete.
In the meantime, the bishop of Tete has said this diocese was coordinating with the Episcopal Commission for Migrants, Displaced People and Refugees- in assisting the 14 survivors.
Two Mozambicans have been arrested in connection with the deaths and human trafficking offences.
Source: vaticanews.va