Mozambican police arrest 39 illegal Somali immigrants

  Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Mozambican police have arrested 39 illegal Somali immigrants, including five women and six children, and turned them over to immigration authorities to prepare them for repatriation, the daily paper "Noticias" reported here Tuesday.
It said the illegal immigrations were arrested in the district of Moamba, in the southern Mozambican province of Maputo, in the early hours of Sunday.
      Alongside the illegal immigrants are Somalis Hassan Sulemane, 40, and Ali Adam, 33, who are living in Maputo with refugee status.
They were also arrested and accused of recruiting and trafficking in illegal immigrants into neighbouring South Africa.
The entire group was arrested while travelling to Ressano Garcia where they had planned to cross the border into South Africa.
      Pakistanis, Somalis, and people of other nationalities, in connivance with Mozambican officials, are engaged in the international networks for the traffic in people, and the police suspect them to be dealing in drugs and firearms, which are blamed for the increase of crime in Mozambique.
      These networks are also believed to supply the child prostitution market, particularly in South Africa.
      Mozambique is preferentially chosen as a transit country because of the poor patrolling of its long borders that, in some places, do not even have a demarcation fence.