More than 50 people are reported to have been beheaded during three days of violence in northern Mozambique.

Islamist insurgents attacked villages in Miudumbe and Macomia districts, in Cabo Delgado province, killing people, abducting women and burning homes.

In the village of Muatide, the jihadists are reported to have turned the football field into an execution ground.

Local sources said they caught people trying to flee the village, took them to the football pitch and chopped their bodies into pieces.

Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced since the Islamist insurgency began more than three years ago.