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Minister Miquidade ddressing parliament this morning. [Photo: Sala da Paz]
Mozambican Interior Minister Amade Miquidade said today that Mozambican defence and security forces had been forced to adapt their strategy and means in order to counter the armed groups launching attacks in the north of the country.
“The complexity of the terrorists’ actions has led to a re-dimensioning of the strategy and the means to combat them [in the north],” Miquidade said in response to deputies’ questions in the Assembly of the Republic.
The armed groups, having started as apparently religious in nature, had assume a certain complexity in nature and performance, the minister said. “What appeared to be an interreligious conflict, at some point, has degenerated into generalised violence.”
At the opening of the parliamentary questions session, Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosário said that the executive was investing in promoting social and economic development projects in Cabo Delgado province so as to create jobs for young people and women.
“In addition to the actions of the defence and security forces, we have been strengthening mechanisms for exchanging information at the regional and continental levels, as well as implementing projects to develop and boost economic and social activity in that part of the country,” the prime minister said.
Regarding the armed attacks in the centre of the country, the interior minister urged the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, to find a solution to the internal dissent that had given rise to the emergence of the Renamo Military Junta, blamed by Mozambican authorities for the attacks.
On Thursday, Minister Miquidade told a press briefing that the defence and security forces had killed a total of 50 members of the groups carrying out armed attacks in Cabo Delgado between Tuesday and Thursday.
Cabo Delgado, a region where megaprojects for the extraction of natural gas are advancing, is grappling with attacks by armed groups classified as a terrorist threat and which have already killed at least 550 people in two-and-a-half years.
Mozambican authorities estimate that 162,000 people have been affected by the violence in the province.
In central Mozambique, since August last year, armed attacks attributed to the Renamo Military Junta have targeted security forces and civilians in villages and on some road sections in the region, causing more than 20 deaths and several wounded, in addition to the destruction of vehicles.
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