In a statement sent to Lusa, the FLEC considers that the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the new coronavirus, is being used by the government to "silently repress" the people of Cabinda, citing an attack last Sunday, 22 March, which will have been carried out by the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).
According to FLEC, three residents of the Kissungo Mbemba village, along the Chiluango river in the Necuto region, Buco Zau municipality, "were found dead, victims of the usual barbarity of the Angolan regime's armed forces.
"The FLEC/FAC condemns and denounces the bloody repression imposed by the military regime of President João Lourenço against the inhabitants of Kissungo Mbemba, further aggravating the pain and suffering in this difficult period that the world is going through", the independence group said.
For the FLEC, the MPLA "continues to use repression and terror as a weapon of combat and war in the territory of Cabinda".
"The inhabitants of Kissungo Mbemba continue to be victims of persistent harassment, arbitrary arrests and kidnappings carried out by the Angolan military," concluded the independents.
FLEC, through its 'armed arm', the FAC, fights for the independence of the territory claiming that the enclave was a Portuguese protectorate, as established in the Treaty of Simulambuco, signed in 1885, and not part of the Angolan territory.
Created in 1963, the independence organisation was divided and multiplied into different, ephemeral factions, with the FLEC/FAC remaining the only movement claiming to maintain an 'armed resistance' against the Luanda administration.
