Mozambique: Loggers abandon yards in response to terrorist threats – Lusa

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Mozambique: Loggers abandon yards in response to terrorist threats – Lusa

10:12 CAT | 08 Mar 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only.

Loggers operating in the community of Intutupue, Cabo Delgado province, have begun to abandon their yards for fear of terrorist attacks, local sources told Lusa on Thursday.

Just 70 kilometres from the provincial capital, the community of Intutupue in Ancuabe district plays an important role in supplying construction material, such as boards, beams, sticks and bamboo, especially for the city of Pemba, but activity is threatened by the suspected presence of terrorists in the woods.

“The situation is difficult, terrorists are circulating 10 or 15 kilometres away, they even killed Nampharamas [a traditional paramilitary group] on Sunday, so many are returning,” a local source told Lusa from Intutupue.

Last Sunday, groups of insurgents in the forests of Intutupue attacked a group of paramilitaries, locally known as ‘Nampharamas’, killing seven of them, at a cost of two of their own.

“The situation is not good, we are all scared,” said a logger who had abandoned a timber yard in Unhanhacula, where the exchange of gunfire took place.

Some peasant farmers have also abandoned Unhanhacula, leaving their production fields (machambas) behind.

“My wife and I left the area. There is a threat from the rebels, they are circulating among us and this could cost us dearly,” a 64-year-old farmer said.

After several months of relative normality in districts affected by armed violence in Cabo Delgado, the province has again been registering new movements and attacks by rebel groups, whose circulation is limited to points on the few paved roads that give access to the districts.

The new wave of terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, displaced 99,313 people in February, including 61,492 children (62%), according to an estimate released this week by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Mozambique’s Minister of National Defence, Cristóvão Chume, on February 29 confirmed attacks by insurgents in four districts of Cabo Delgado province, but said that this did not constitute “a resurgence” of terrorist activities in the north.

“I want to say that this is not what is happening, because if that were actually the case, we would be saying that there are districts or district headquarters that are occupied, with no access for the population. What happened is that there are small groups of terrorists who left the their base in the Namarussia area and went further south, attacking some villages and creating panic,” Minister Chume said.

Speaking to journalists in Maputo after meeting a high-level mission from the European Union, the minister guaranteed that the situation in Cabo Delgado “remains stable, despite the latest events in the south of the province”.

“As we know, some villages in the districts of Quissanga, Metuge, Ancuabe, Chiùre, suffered some attacks, which led to a displacement of the population to other districts of Cabo Delgado further south, and to the province of Nampula,” he acknowledged.

According to the minister, the priority is to invest in development programs to “minimize the risk of radicalization” and “prevent the re-emergence of terrorism”.

“We do not mean to say that there are no incidents of terrorism – yes, there are,” he said. “And we will continue to fight, but what happened in the past will not happen again. We are firm in this, but we will watch situations like these that happened in Chiùre, in Metuge, and other areas, where there are some attacks that we cannot avoid.”

Source: Lusa