A traumatised wife was forced to carry the decapitated head of her husband, after he was murdered by militants.

The woman, from Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, was reportedly told by her husband’s killers to take the head to the local police station.

Zimbabwe Daily news channel said the pastor’s wife told police the suspected Islamic State (IS) linked insurgents intercepted the pastor in a field, before they decapitated him.

A terrorist group calling itself Al-Shabab, which is loosely affiliated with IS, is thought to be responsible.

Human rights organisation International Christian Concern (ICC) decried the “monstrous act”, calling on Christians to “pray that the Lord would provide comfort to the wife of this slain pastor, and that He would heal her of the trauma she has had to endure”.

The Daily Mail reported that the woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, said the attackers kidnapped her husband from the farm before beheading him.

"The Cabo Delgado province has been rocked by attacks by Islamic State-linked militants since 2017, killing at least 3,340 people and displacing more than 800,000", The Mail said.

News of this decapitation comes only a month after Premier Christian News reported that extremists linked to ISIS beheaded more than 50 people in Mozambique.

That incident was one of more than 600 attacks in the Cabo Delgado province, where up to 2,000 people had died and 310,000 made homeless.

Residents of Cabo Delgado province were being evicted from their homes by the terrorist group, according to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, who were providing blankets, clothing, food, basic hygiene products and counselling for trauma victims.

Speaking to ACN, Sister Blanca Nubia Zapata said: “It seems as though they are trying to evict the entire population of the northern part of Cabo Delgado province, expelling the ordinary people without the slightest vestige of compassion,”.