Mozambique: Challenges persist in identifying terrorism financiers – Watch

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Mozambique: Challenges persist in identifying terrorism financiers – Watch

3:46 CAT | 27 Jul 2022

Screen grab: TVM

The Mozambican Ministry of Defence admitted this Wednesday that challenges persist in identifying the financiers of the rebels terrorizing Cabo Delgado province in the north of the country.

“It is important to acknowledge that it is a challenge to identify the financiers of terrorism in Mozambique, given that it is an international issue,” said the inspector general of the Ministry of National Defence, Victor Muiriquele, quoted by Notícias, the most widely circulated daily in Mozambique.

The sponsors of the armed groups operate from outside the country, so locating them and blocking the financing channels for the war in northern Mozambique becomes complex, Muiriquele said.

The Ministry of National Defence official said that identifying the financiers of the armed groups dominated the virtual meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Defence Inspectorate Working Group on Tuesday.

At the SADC level, efforts are underway to improve coordination in the fight against terrorism, including the identification of sources of support for armed groups, he added.

Those efforts will complement the ongoing military action by the SADC contingent deployed to combat the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado, in collaboration with Mozambican and Rwandan government forces.

READ: US State Department: Designations of ISIS-Mozambique, JNIM, and al-Shabaab Leaders – unabridged

Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, is rich in natural gas, but has been terrorized since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), about 800,000 persons have been internally displaced by the conflict, which has killed about 4,000, according to the ACLED conflict registry project.

Since July 2021, an offensive by government troops, with the support of Rwandan and later Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops, has recovered a number of areas from rebel control, but their flight has led to new attacks in districts through which they have passed or where they have taken up temporary refuge.

Watch the TVM report.