Mozambique: SERNIC arrests two alleged kidnappers - AIM report | Watch
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The town of Mocímboa da Praia woke up today calmer, but bearing the marks of the confrontation between government forces and the armed group which invaded the town on Monday, local sources told Lusa today.
The village is 90 kilometres from the natural gas megaprojects under construction in the country, which in turn represent one of the largest private investment projects underway in Africa.
One resident told Lusa that people were circulating in some areas, but there were bodies in the streets and numerous signs of the confrontation between the defence and security forces and the group that attacked the town, after two years of ongoing armed violence in Cabo Delgado province.
“We are finding dead people, both military and civilians. Some died in handcuffs,” one resident told Lusa by telephone.
It is still unclear who controls the village, they say, with one person adding that the armed group still controls the port of Mocímboa.
A local source told Lusa that the attack occurred two weeks after the disappearance of a group of 43 alleged members of the movement that committed the attack.
The group of armed men invaded the town at dawn on Monday, and was involved in armed clashes with the Mozambican defence and security forces using a variety of weaponry throughout the day.
Police said the group occupied the town barracks, where they hoisted their flag, destroyed houses, vandalised public spaces and created barricades at the main entrances to Mocímboa da Praia.
The population was barricaded themselves in their houses, never venturing out, residents told Lusa.
The Mozambican Police General Command appealed for calm on Monday, saying it was engaging the attackers.
Photos taken by the population and sent to Lusa show vandalised banks, cars and homes.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been the target of attacks by armed groups, which international organisations have classified as a terrorist threat, and which in two and a half years have claimed at least 350 lives and subjected 156,400 to loss of property or forced them to abandon their homes in search of safety.
The attacks have occurred mainly in rural areas, but Mocímboa da Praia is the district headquarters and one of the main urban centres in the region, served by the only paved road that crosses the province and with an aerodrome capable of receiving international flights.
It is the town where, in October 2017, the armed insurgency began, in a mosque which, like others in Cabo Delgado, was at the time indicated as the target of the radicalisation still tormenting the province.
Mocímboa da Praia is 90 kilometres south of Palma, the district hosting a number of international natural gas megaprojects.
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