S.Egidio mourns the death of Juvencio, a young peace activist killed in Mozambique

The lifeless body of Juvêncio, a fifteen-year-old Mozambican, who disappeared on Saturday 8 November together with his 12-year-old friend Ilton, was found yesterday morning along the banks of the Rio Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo. A horrifying scene appeared to the fishermen who found the young man: Juvêncio's eyes and tongue had been torn out, almost certainly during a witchcraft rite.

The tragic event is recounted by Don Rolando Curzi, priest of the Community of Sant'Egidio and rector of the church of San Giovanni Paolo II in Maputo, still in shock together with the many children and adolescents of the School of Peace, attended by Juvêncio and Ilton. "They were never missing on Saturday mornings - remembers Don Rolando -, in fact when their parents came looking for them because they hadn't come home for lunch, we immediately became suspicious and advised them to contact the authorities to start the search".

The two boys, belonging to poor families who immigrated to the capital from a rural area of ​​Mozambique, also attended the Community Nutrition Center in Matola, which offers nutritious meals to 500 minors every day.

In Mozambique, a country still shaken by the violence and jihadist attacks in the north, the abductions of minors, whose organs are used in macabre witchcraft rituals, are not uncommon. The Community of Sant'Egidio, mediator of the negotiations that led to the General Peace Agreement signed in Rome on 4 October 1992, has been present in Mozambique since the 1980s and promotes the culture of peace and respect for life, through educational activities in schools, villages and with the widespread presence of the Schools of Peace and the Youth for Peace movement.

This afternoon, at the Nutrition Center in Matola, around 600 people gathered around the families of the two young people, participating with great emotion in a prayer in memory of Juvêncio and invoking the salvation of Ilton's life.