The Secret Bond That Helped Two Captive Women Survive Mozambiques Islamists

Barely known to each other before they were abducted by the brutal al-Shabaab militants, a friendship forged in adversity helped them and their children find safety Ancha, who was 20, had been kidnapped and held captive in a house in northern Mozambique for two months when 17-year-old Fatima was brought there. What their captors did not know even after the young womens daring escape together was that they were cousins. Both had grown up around Mucojo, a small coastal town 130 miles 210km south of the Tanzanian border, from where they had been abducted in separate raids in 2020 by militants, an Islamic State-affiliated group known locally as al-Shabaab though it has no links with the Islamist militants of the same name in Somalia.