Mozambique: Armed group kills village leader, wife in Namuno district, Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: Armed group kills village leader, wife in Namuno district, Cabo Delgado

8:58 CAT | 02 Nov 2022

File- For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

An armed group on Saturday killed the head of a village and his wife in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, different sources in the Murrameia community reported on Tuesday.

The attack caused the flight of almost 1,000 people, most of them children, according to figures published today by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The village belongs to the administrative post of Hucula, in the district of Namuno, adjacent to the district of Montepuez, where an armed attack on a ruby mine 10 days ago forced the suspension of activities and the evacuation of workers.

Both districts are in the extreme southwest of Cabo Delgado, which until September was free of terrorists and closer to neighbouring provinces (Nampula and Niassa) than to Pemba, the provincial capital, which is about 400 kilometres away.

“Around 15:00 [14:00 in Lisbon], we were surprised by a group that we thought were terrorists by the way they acted,” described a resident.

The group beheaded the village chief and his wife and set fire to the primary school and a tractor belonging to a local agricultural association, which caused the population to flee to the district headquarters.

“We abandoned the village because they are violent. They killed our village chief, and we don’t know what awaits us,” the same source added.

Another local source mentioned that at least one child was missing, who got away from his parents during the attack.

The population of the surrounding villages has also started to flee to the district headquarters.

The IOM issued an alert from the displaced persons’ registration mechanism in Cabo Delgado, according to which 958 people left from Hucula and Machoca to the district headquarters on Saturday and Sunday.

“Fear and confirmed attacks by armed groups were at the origin of the movement,” said the alert, according to which there are 100 vulnerable displaced people, including pregnant women, the elderly and minors separated from their families.

Of the total number of residents fleeing, 60% are children, it adds.

Cabo Delgado province has been terrorised since 2017 by armed violence, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency has led to a military response since a year ago with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged south of the region and in neighbouring Nampula province.

In five years, the conflict has left one million people displaced, according to the UNHCR, and around 4,000 dead, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

Source: Lusa