Listen: Terrorists attacked several villages as they fled Awasse, Mocimboa – residents | VOA

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Listen: Terrorists attacked several villages as they fled Awasse, Mocimboa – residents | VOA

3:31 CAT | 11 Aug 2021

File photo: VOA Portugues

Insurgents allied with the Islamic State attacked five villages and stole property from the few remaining residents who had survived previous raids during their flight from Awasse and Mocímboa da Praia following the attack by the joint Mozambique-Rwanda force, various local sources told VOA on Tuesday, August 10.

Last Wednesday (August 04), the joint force recovered the locality of Awasse, and five days later (on Sunday), expelled the jihadists from their “headquarters” in Mocímboa da Praia, where the terrorist attacks began in October, 2017.

Several houses were looted and set on fire, and machine-gun fire was heard in villages northwest of Mocímboa da Praia and southeast of Nangade, between Wednesday (04) and Saturday, August 8.

The terrorists were travelling on motorbikes, allegedly towards the border with Tanzania, sources reported.

“At the time when the joint forces were acting in Awasse and Mocímboa, the insurgents started to act in (attack) villages in Nangade district, such as Mandimba, Chacamba (on the border with Tanzania), Nune and Quissama,” Nangade resident Salimo Abubacar told VOA.

Several people left their hiding places to look for better shelter, fearing insecurity after long months without attacks on the villages, he added.

Troops

“There were IDPs from Mocímboa da Praia and Palma who had not been able to flee to other districts, but after these problems in the villages (the new attacks), they decided to leave the villages and forests where they were living in hiding,” Zuneide Usseine told VOA.

The interviewees described “little movement” by foreign troops in the main corridor between Palma and Nangade districts – which has been the scene of several jihadist ambushes on vehicle convoys – despite them keeping a “sizeable presence” in Mueda.

“No force has arrived in this part of Nangade, neither from the SADC nor from Rwanda. We still have just our [militia],” another Nangade resident reported.

There is no information on casualties or injuries resulting from the attacks.

VOA succeeded in contacting Ernesto Madungue, spokesman for the Provincial Command of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) in Cabo Delgado, by telephone, but he could neither confirm nor deny details of the attacks, referring VOA to the Ministry of Defence, which did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Audio, in Portuguese. below.

Source: VOA Portugues