Bank returns to Palma, people take to the streets, and even the president was there

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Bank returns to Palma, people take to the streets, and even the president was there

4:05 CAT | 04 Aug 2023

Photo: Presidente Filipe Nyusi / Facebook

When the insurgent attacks hit Palma, Mozambique, the three banks there were destroyed, which is why people took to the streets in celebration on Thursday on the return of the first branch. Even the president was there.

“The bank has arrived,” said the head of state Filipe Nyusi in Palma, Cabo Delgado, when presiding over the reopening and inauguration of the Millennium Banco Internacional de Moçambique (BIM) branch, received in celebration by hundreds of people who had gathered outside the renovated facilities in the scorching sun several hours earlier.

Cabo Delgado province has been facing an armed insurgency for five years, which increased in severity in 2021, with the attack on Palma, a village that is now safe and heavily guarded.

“A week after the last attack on this town, I was here. I visited the young people who were in the trenches and as I passed by, I saw how the bank was destroyed. This one and also the neighbouring banks that operated here. It is moving to see that what a man wants, when he wants to, he does it,” said Nyusi to the applause of the people in a town of about 40,000 inhabitants, now no longer obliged to make a long and still dangerous journey of several hours to branches in nearby districts.

Elements associated with the Islamic State carried out a total of 384 attacks in Mozambique in 2021, which resulted in 1,127 deaths among civilians, Mozambican armed forces and fighters, according to a report by the US State Department’s counterterrorism office.

On March 24, 2021, the insurgents attacked the town of Palma, in the northeast of the country, creating thousands of internally displaced persons as they expanded control to other districts of Cabo Delgado province, leading TotalEnergies to suspend its natural gas development operations on the Afungi Peninsula.

While waiting for the opening of the Palma branch of the Millennium BIM bank (66.68% owned by the Portuguese BCP and 17.12% by the Mozambican state), Assomane Mana, a 43-year-old farmer, was doing his maths, leaning against the wall of the bar opposite the event that so animated the town today.

“It makes it easier, because now I no longer have to go to the bank in Mueda,” he explained to Lusa, while hundreds gathered further ahead at the roadside.

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About the past, Assomane says that he lost his sister in the terrorist attacks on the town, but that it is time to look to the future, an appeal that President Nyusi would repeat shortly afterwards, urging the population to welcome those who are still “in the woods”.

“Palma is fine, it’s safe. Even too much,” the farmer joked before joining the ceremony to hear Filipe Nyusi recall the period when the banks closed in Palma and the destruction caused by the attacks, namely that of Millennium BIM.

Banking activity “was forced to stop by a cowardly and faceless enemy”, Nyusi said. “We are facing an unequivocal sign that our focus on a future at peace far surpasses the feeling of hatred and disagreement that only sows mourning and implies economic backwardness,” said the head of state.

For the chairman of the board of directors of Millennium BIM, Rui Cirne Fonseca, the reopening of the bank, one of the three largest in Mozambique, “shows its dedication” and “its commitment” to “serving this population of Palma”.

The objective is “to serve the economic agents of Palma and to have normality in this part of the country return quickly, for the peace of everyone, throughout the country, and so that this province can progress as it deserves,” he added.

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Watching the inauguration ceremony, student Adija Aduai, 24, said: “Now we have a bank. Before we had to go to Mueda, it was too far, too long a round trip. All we need is money.”

In conversation with Lusa, she joked about the current situation in Palma: “Everything is fine, cool. Even too much so! But it’s better that way.”

The arrival on the ground of forces of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) and the Defence Forces of Rwanda (RDF) from July 2021 allowed the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces (FDS) to recover territory, including Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, a strategic port city that the insurgents had taken in 2020.

Now, little by little, the destruction wrought by months of violence and atrocities is beginning to wane in Palma.

“For those who saw Palma destroyed, today is completely different,” the president said, guaranteeing that “it is becoming that town of Palma again”, and recognizing the contribution that is being made by international forces in the pacification of the northern districts of Cabo Delgado.

“The return of this bank branch is pressure for the population, but above all for the Defence and Security Forces,” he said, leaving one last appeal: “Continue with the necessary courage to maintain this calm that characterises the Vila de Palma. Preserve our independence, keeping Mozambique as a sovereign country in its territorial fullness, one and indivisible”.

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