| | 'We want to finish off the people of Samora Machel!' , chanted the 'armed bandits' as they moved amongst the houses at Homoine. 'People should not live in villages. They should be in the bush!' At dawn on 18 July 1987 the MNR (Mozambique National Resistance movement or 'Renamo' ) entered this small town 18 miles inland from Inhambane. Some went from house to house, shooting and stabbing people as they hid in the shadows. Others headed toward the police station and from there to the hospital, where they broke into cabinets, stealing supplies and medicines, and kidnapped a nurse. They then turned their weapons on the patients, shooting them as they lay in their beds. 'They killed pregnant women with bayonets' , eye-witnesses reported. Nor were newborn babies or young children spared. By the end of the day, 388 people were dead and many others wounded. |
