Sister Maria was about to flee with the other missionaries when she turned back out of concern for the 12 female students who had stayed behind at the mission, according to the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need.
The 83-year-old religious sister left a voicemail for her niece, Gabriella Bottani, shortly before her death, the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported.
In the voicemail, Sister Maria said that Al-Shabaab insurgents were close to the mission and the situation was “very tense.”
“It appears that they are armed, that they have already kidnapped people, killed someone,” she said.
“Wherever they pass, they carry out massacres.”
Churches have been burnt, people beheaded, young girls kidnapped, and hundreds of thousands of people displaced by escalating extremist violence in Mozambique in recent years.
A missionary in Mozambique told Aid to the Church in Need that the local insurgents who have been targeting Christians in the region have ties to the Islamic State.
During Holy Week in 2020, insurgents perpetrated attacks on seven towns and villages in northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, burning down a church on Good Friday and killing 52 young people who refused to join the terrorist group, according to the local bishop.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in attacks in Mozambique since 2017, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some of these attacks were claimed by the Islamic State, while others were carried out by the homegrown Ahlu Sunna Wal, an extremist militant group, locally known as Al-Shabaab, which has been kidnapping men and women.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi said that on Sept. 6, “As a result of terrorist attacks, six citizens were beheaded, three kidnapped, six terrorists were captured, and dozens of houses torched in the districts of Erati and Memba, Nampula province.”
