The Judicial Court of the Guijá District, in Gaza province, ordered the eviction, within 24 hours, of a Mozambican investor with more than a thousand animals, including cattle, sheep and goats.

The farmer and the owners of an area of 4,200 hectares of pasture are disputing the land in the village of Manzene, in the town of Mpelane, in Guijá.

The farmer, identified as Pinto Balane, looked for an area to graze in 2013, and he claims that he leased the land for a period of 10 years. He paid 300,000 meticais to the family that owned the land.

He told Televisão de Moçambique that over the years there had been a promise to buy the space for around 1,300,000 meticais. To this end, he invested around five million meticais to build infrastructure inside the leased area.

The son and representative of the owners of the space, Dércio Nhabanga, explained that Balane did not sign the contract with the legitimate owner of the space because, due to his advanced age, he was no longer in a position to do so. So he signed the contract with the Massango family. He also claims that the statements that there was a promise to sell the space are false.

The owners submitted the complaint to the Judicial Court of the District of Guijá, which found Balane guilty and ordered him to leave on September 10.

"I don't refuse to leave their space. I ask them for time. The problem is that the court tells me to leave in a day," lamented Balane.

However, the representative of the Massango family said that a letter of non-renewal of the contract had already been issued six months before the end of the current contract.