Mozambique: Insurgents in some areas trying to gain public trust – village residents

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Mozambique: Insurgents in some areas trying to gain public trust – village residents

9:41 CAT | 20 Oct 2023

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

Residents of villages in Macomia, Cabo Delgado, said that groups that have been attacking the Mozambican province for six years have, in recent days, tried to gain the public’s trust with promises of non-violence and asking for protection.

Local sources told Lusa on Friday that terrorists entered the town of Pangane, more than 40 kilometres from the district headquarters of Macomia, and, as well as asking for food, promised not to attack residents in exchange for protection against any threat from government forces and others deployed in Cabo Delgado and for sharing information about their movements.

“Yesterday they entered Pangane and it’s not the first time. They always ask the public to protect them and provide them with food because they don’t have any and they say they won’t kill them,” explained a source from Macomia’s headquarters.

The same source said that this approach prevents the public from cultivating agricultural fields nearby: “I have a field nine kilometres away, but I’m scared, the terrorists are moving around and nothing is happening.”

On the Macomia coast, the town of Pangane and the Mucojo administrative post are, according to residents, the places most visited by terrorists, causing panic among those who have since returned to their places of origin after fleeing the first attacks.

“I came back, but there are always terrorists moving around here, I don’t know when. If this continues, I’ll move to Macomia,” a 69-year-old woman, the mother of seven children and 18 grandchildren, told Lusa.

The fishermen also say that they are afraid to go out to sea, given the movement of the rebels in Mucojo and Pangane, so the whole coast of Macomia is a source of apprehension.

“We live by work and ours is the sea, but we’re afraid because the rebels are unpredictable,” said another source.

Cabo Delgado province has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State. This insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021 with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region and in neighbouring Nampula province.

The conflict has already displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the conflict registration project, ACLED.

Source: Lusa