[imagesource: Lusa]

The situation in northern Mozambique, and particularly in and around the Cabo Delgado province, remains dire.

Over the past year or so, reports of ISIS-linked groups sweeping through the area, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake, have grown increasingly common.

There have been public beheadings, villages have been burnt to the ground, and Islamist rebels have been recruiting youth as they seek to grow their numbers.

Now, according to a report by Amnesty International titled What I Saw Is Death’: War Crimes in Mozambique’s Forgotten Cape, you can add South African mercenaries into the equation, who are being accused of war crimes.

VICE has summarised the findings of the report:

White South African mercenaries hired by the Mozambican government have carried out indiscriminate helicopter attacks and killed civilians as part of an escalating war in neighboring Mozambique…

Image: Amnesty International

Fifty-three witnesses interviewed by Amnesty International claim that forces from a South African private military company, known as the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), fired machine guns from helicopters and dropped hand grenades indiscriminately into crowds of people, failing to differentiate between civilians and military targets in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province.

On the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) website, under ‘Specialised Security‘, the company says it has “a large pool of ex-military personal from various nationalities to call upon, all with previous experience of undertaking security operations in hostile environments”.

One harrowing eyewitness account detailed a helicopter attack in June of last year, where one chopper was dropping bombs, and another was shooting.

A civilian group that was being held captive by the bandits was gunned down from the air, with the eyewitness saying that “many people died there”.

Another eyewitness detailed an attack at a cemetery, where civilians were shot at from the air, and forced to flee into a forest to escape.

Since October 2017, more than 1,300 civilians have been killed in a conflict involving DAG, the armed forces of Mozambique, and Islamist militants internationally known as Ahl al-Sunnah wa al Jamma’ah or ISIS-Mozambique, but locally as al-Shabaab (although unrelated to the group in Somalia).

Amnesty’s report, based on remote interviews with survivors of the attacks, documents serious violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict that have left hundreds dead and driven more than half a million from their homes.

The increasingly violent methods used by the militants has led to a counterinsurgency campaign by Mozambican troops, although in many instances, the government forces were defeated, and eventually fled.

As a result of this, the government of Mozambique hired DAG, and in particular, wanted to enlist their helicopter warfare tactics.

According to Brian Castner, the Senior Crisis Advisor for arms and military operations at Amnesty International, this is problematic for a number of reasons:

“Lionel Dyck, the founder of Dyck Advisory Group, is himself a former commander in the Rhodesian army. DAG is possibly violating South African law by fighting in Cabo Delgado, and both DAG and Mozambican government are responsible for any violations of the laws of war that occur during their operations.

“If DAG can’t fulfill its contract obligations without killing civilians and targeting hospitals, then it has a duty to stop operating in Mozambique.”

Following the release of the report, Amnesty International has called on all parties “to immediately stop targeting civilians and for the government of Mozambique to investigate these crimes”.

The Dyck Advisory Group has yet to issue a statement in response to the report, but as Castner pointed out in a tweet yesterday, they may want to take down a video or two:

Dyck Advisory Group makes it look like all fun and games in Cabo Delgado. But tomorrow we’re publishing a report detailing how they indiscriminately shoot into villages and kill civilians during their Fortunate Son joyrides. More to come soon. https://t.co/iaU6NZByS1

— Brian Castner (@Brian_Castner) March 1, 2021

The video in question was posted to YouTube by The Team House, a podcast hosted by two former U.S. Army Rangers, who appear to be operating as part of DAG’s team:

Great song, but some seriously ill-advised usage.

You can read Amnesty International’s full report here.

[source:vice]