Mozambique attacks: Militia kills rebels near the Messalo river

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique attacks: Militia kills rebels near the Messalo river

4:18 CAT | 08 Dec 2022

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

Members of a militia in northern Mozambique announced yesterday that they had shot dead four rebels and wounded two others during an ambush on a group fetching water from the Messalo river on Wednesday.

The ambush took place in a remote part of the Nangumbe forests in the south of Mueda district, far from the province’s natural gas projects and its capital, Pemba.

“We managed to kill four terrorists and wound two others. After our attack, many fled to the Meluco area,” on the south bank of the Messalo, a source from the village of Homba announced.

The local force says it will “continue to carry out patrols” in order to “liberate” the area where armed groups have been sighted.

Another militia member said that some villages (Homba, Nangumbe and Xaxaxa) are still deserted as a result of recent attacks.

The banks of the Messalo River, especially in the neighbouring district of Muidumbe, have been the scene of some of the most recent armed attacks in northern Mozambique.

Between November 16th and 22nd alone, close to 3,000 people, half of them children, fled their homes in the district, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The majority fled on foot to other towns in the same district or to Mueda.

Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas, but has been terrorized since 2017 by armed violence in which some attacks are claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency led to a military response a year ago with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), freeing districts next to natural gas projects in the province, but new waves of violence emerged in the south of the region and in neighbouring Nampula.
In five years, the conflict has displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and killed around 4,000, according to the ACLED conflict registry project.

Source: Lusa