Madagascar: Two innocents killed and three others kidnapped

A criminal group shot two people in the commune of Marovazaha, Anjozorobe. A teacher, his sister-in-law, and the daughter of one of the deceased were kidnapped.

Death knocks at the door. This is what literally happened in the district of Anjozorobe. Monday night, dahalo appeared at a peasant’s house in Fieferana, in the commune of Marovazaha, and shot a bullet in his right eye.

Let’s go back to what happened just before this heinous murder. It was 8 p.m., about twenty armed criminals landed in the small village of Fieferana, inhabited by about two hundred people. A deluge of shots in the air froze the blood in the veins. People stayed locked in their homes.

The attackers approached a house where a couple of traveling merchants lived. The couple lives in Antananarivo and joins Fieferana every Tuesday for their activities. The villains surely know their lifestyle. They captured the woman while the husband managed to escape.

The bandits took the woman to guide them to the next house. The occupants refused to open the door. It took them a few minutes to break down the door. Without warning, they shot the head of the family and kidnapped his 13-year-old daughter. Then they came across a third house, where a teacher Fram (hired and paid by the parents of the students) is installed downstairs and his sister-in-law, a seller of “mofo gasy” or Malagasy rice cakes, and coffee, upstairs. The two, aged 32, were also kidnapped.

Motives of the kidnappings

The gang found no one in the next house. They finally headed to the house of a former village chief and kidnapped him. This man was lucky to free himself while they were walking. “Four years ago, he had already been attacked, robbed of his belongings, and his house set on fire,” notes a civilian source, an eyewitness to this new crime.

The kidnappers wanted to go to another hamlet when three gendarmes from the local fixed post intervened. The soldiers from the Special Security Detachment were nowhere to be found at the time of the events and all night, according to testimonies.

The gendarmes and the criminals exchanged gunfire as soon as they came face-to-face on a slope. The confrontation lasted three hours. The kidnappers retreated and killed one of the four hostages, precisely the traveling merchant. Her lifeless body was left in the middle of the street.

“We noticed that she had difficulty following the others. She is a bit corpulent. Yet, their tormentors took them across rice fields and up a slope,” describes our informant.

“So there are still three hostages left. This morning (yesterday), at least twelve soldiers arrived in the village,” he continued.

According to other information, five of the attackers were armed. Two had each a MAS 36, one had a Kalashnikov, and the other two used locally made pistols. Most of these kidnappers live in the same district.

“Only a few are foreigners. Even though they operate openly, no one recognizes them. In general, the motives of the previous kidnappings were based on social issues, on grudges between neighbors. The hostages are not supposed to be wealthy people. What does a Fram teacher own? His sister-in-law? The girl who lost her father? Their families do not have a few million Ariary to save them. Rice fields to sell? They don’t have any,” mourns the neighborhood.

The gendarmes reported that they were continuing the pursuit operation. As a reminder, on March 24, two people were also killed and three others kidnapped in another village in the same district. Twenty-three days have passed, but the fate of these prisoners remains uncertain.

Hajatiana Léonard