Many more residents were injured when the pile of waste, some 15m (49ft) high, gave way in heavy rains at 03:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Monday.

Rescue workers are continuing to search for people still trapped.

The city of Maputo has experienced heavy rainfall since Sunday, which has damaged homes and flooded roads.

Several properties were crushed in the incident in the Hulene district of Maputo, one of the poorest parts of the capital, while people were sleeping inside.

A spokesman for the emergency services, Leonilde Pelembe, warned that more victims could be trapped under the waste.

“The information we received from local authorities is that the number of people living in those houses exceeds the number of deaths recorded,” Mr Pelembe said.

The authorities said they had previously asked residents in the area to leave because their homes were constructed illegally, Reuters news agency reports.

However, one local resident whose son was injured in the landslide, Maria Huo, said: “I live in this neighbourhood because I have nowhere to go. Had the government told me to go to another place to live, I would have left here.”

In the poorer suburbs of cities such as Maputo, people sometimes live on land they do not own in the hope of finding work. The dwellings can be built on land that is unsafe.

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Source: BBC

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Police had no choice but to kill the elephants because they had become “uncontrollable” and could have threatened more lives, provincial land and environmental affairs director Juliana Mwito said.

The elephants had crossed into Mozambique from South Africa’s Kruger National Park, a popular tourist destination.

The animals had also destroyed many crops, affecting the livelihoods of the rural community, Ms Mwito said.

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Source: BBC

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After the woman died due to complications during childbirth, her relatives forced her young partner to pay the “lobolo”, warning that she would not be buried otherwise.

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Source: BBC

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Two bald men, one of whom was found with his head cut off and organs removed, were  recently killed in a part of the country already notorious for the persecution of albinos.

“Last month, the murders of two bald people led to the arrest of two suspects,” said the national police spokesman Inacio Dina.

“Their motivations come from superstition and culture: the local community thinks bald individuals are rich,” he said.

The killings took place in Milange, in the centre of the southern African country, a few miles from the border with Malawi. The local police told AFP that the two victims were aged over 40.

“One of them was found with his head cut off and his organs removed,” said Miguel Caetano, a spokesman for the security forces in the central province of Zambezia.

The suspects arrested are two Mozambicans about 20 years old. According to their statements, the organs were to be used by healers in rituals to promote the fortunes of clients in Tanzania and Malawi, Caetano said. It was the first time that bald people have been victims of such attacks in the region, he added.

Dina likened the attacks to those on albinos, whose body parts are used in witchcraft rituals.

According to the UN, more than a hundred attacks against albinos – who have white skin because of a hereditary condition that causes an absence of pigmentation – have been registered in Mozambique since 2014, mainly in the centre and the north of the country.

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Source: The Guardian

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