Mozambique: Houses burned down near Palma, armed forces control the town – spokesman

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Mozambique: Houses burned down near Palma, armed forces control the town – spokesman

2:54 CAT | 29 Apr 2021

FIILE - Brigadier Chongo Vidigal was speaking from Afungi, near Palma. [File photo: TVM]

Several houses near the town of Palma, northern Mozambique, were burned down on Tuesday night, a spokesman for the Mozambican Armed Forces (FADM) told Lusa this Thursday, but FADM remains in control of the district headquarters.

“What we had were some houses burnt down on Tuesday outside Palma by two alleged insurgents,” said Chongo Vidigal, FADM spokesman for the Northern Operational Theatre (Teatro Operacional Norte).

The official was speaking to Lusa today from Afungi, about six kilometres south of Palma, next to the facilities of the gas project in northern Mozambique and the Quitunda resettlement village.

The alleged attackers, the same ones responsible for the March 24 attack, returned to Palma looking for “revenge”, he claimed. “We think it was out of revenge against members of the population who the insurgents think collaborated with the Defence and Security Forces (FDS),” he said.

Chongo Vidigal spoke to Lusa after two sources in the town reported the presence of strangers who have been attacking people and destroying properties since Tuesday night.

The spokesman confirmed the burning of some houses but reiterated: “The real information is that Palma is completely under the control of the FDS. The village is fully protected”.

Vidigal acknowledged that the majority of the population were afraid to return to Palma, but that was because “the administrative structures” had not yet been reinstated. “It is like in a house: If the head of the family does not return, the other members of the household are afraid,” he explained.

Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has already caused more than 2,500 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and 714,000 people displaced, according to the Mozambican government.

The most recent attack, on March 24, was carried out against the town of Palma, causing dozens of deaths and injuries in numbers yet to be ascertained.

Mozambican authorities regained control of the town, but the attack led oil company Total to indefinitely abandon the main construction site of the gas project scheduled to start production in 2024 and on which many of Mozambique’s expectations for economic growth in the next decade are based.

Source: Lusa