Mozambique: At least five killed in attack attributed to the Naparama paramilitary group

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Mozambique: At least five killed in attack attributed to the Naparama paramilitary group

8:00 CAT | 09 Apr 2025

Map: Google Earth

At least five people died on Tuesday in an attack attributed to the Naparama paramilitary group in the village of Ntotué, in Mocímboa da Praia district, in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, local sources told Lusa.

The attack, which caused an unknown number of injuries, happened in the early hours of the day, when the group started shooting at civilians in the community, said an anonymous source who was speaking from Awasse, in Mocímboa da Praia district.

“My grandmother is now in Mueda district. She fled Ntotwe because the situation is not good there,” the source explained.

After the raid, a Rapid Intervention Unit (police) force was called to the scene.

“Police arrived and shots were exchanged,” another local source told Lusa.

The Naparamas are Mozambican paramilitaries that emerged in the 1980s during the civil war. They combine traditional knowledge and mystical elements to fight their enemies and act as a community.

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Historically, the Naparamas classify themselves as a force that organised itself spontaneously for the self-defence of the population in the face of war, and its members undergo initiation rites designed to give them alleged “supernatural protection” which they believe makes them immune, even to bullets.

In February, four alleged members of the Naparamas paramilitary group were killed after clashes with the Republic of Mozambique Police (PRM) while trying to invade an administrative post in Zambézia province, in the centre of the country, an official source said at the time.

On 2 January, alleged members of the group beheaded a neighbourhood secretary in the district of Murrumbala, in Zambézia province, and placed the victim’s head in a public square, a police source told Lusa.

Also in Nampula province, the PRM shot dead seven members of the same group who were trying to invade an administrative post in that northern province, the police authorities said on 7 February, without confirming whether they were killed.

On 12 February, the President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, asked the new deputy commander-general of the PRM, Aquilasse Manda, to combat the attacks attributed to the paramilitary group Naparamas in Zambezia province, saying that they were “trying to block” vital roads for the country’s development.

The district of Mocímboa da Praia is among those most affected by the actions of terrorist groups that have carried out attacks in Cabo Delgado province since October 2017, incursions claimed by movements associated with the extremist group Islamic State.

Source: Lusa