The police statement follows a complaint by Amnesty International (AI), according to which a 5-year-old boy was missing after the police action, on the outskirts of Moçâmedes, which also resulted in 16 houses being set on fire.
According to the police, the intervention was requested by the Moçâmedes Court and conducted by a justice official, to restore order "in a farm that had been illegally occupied by a group of citizens wielding blunt objects", including machetes and knives.
According to the non-governmental organization (NGO), the child, Mbapamuhuka Caçador, disappeared on 12 October, after the raid by the Rapid Intervention Police, which was caused by a land dispute, and residents feared that the boy had been burned alive in one of the houses attacked by the police.
"The PNA strongly condemns the publication of such information, and informs that during the police action there was no disappearance of the child in question and that he is in the family", says the statement released on the police social networks on Friday night. fair.
According to AI, the raid was led by the son of a former provincial police commander in Namibe province, named "Cunha", and was "carried out on behalf of the widow" of the former commander - identified as "Antónia Fernanda" - , as part of "a campaign to forcibly annex land belonging to the Mucubai community, adjacent to their agrarian exploitation".
According to the NGO, residents and witnesses reported that the police "suddenly attacked the houses, setting fire to them and burning everything they contained, such as blankets, sheets, mattresses, clothes, shoes, food and water containers".
"Police also destroyed vegetable gardens and killed cattle belonging to members of the Mucubai ethnic minority group," the statement said.
Five people - José Mbapiluka, Mbakahako Muandjissamo, Mukamuavia Mbakahako, Tchimupepa and Zacarias - were reportedly detained and then released on 13 October "without charge", according to Amnesty.
One of the detainees, Mukamuavia Mbakahako, "was forced by the police to inhale a toxic gas that made him pass out" and, "while he was unconscious, the police handcuffed him and threw him into a police car", he added.
According to the NGO, forced evictions from rural communities, such as the one that took place in Ndamba, "are widespread in Angola, particularly in the southern region, where powerful individuals linked to the MPLA have taken over traditional grazing lands belonging to the pastoralist communities, aggravating their vulnerability, especially food and water insecurity".
"The Mucubais are an economically, socially and politically marginalized and oppressed minority group in southern Angola," said Amnesty International.
