Mozambique: Perpetrators of new attacks are ‘bandits’ and not ‘Naparamas’ – Watch

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Mozambique: Perpetrators of new attacks are ‘bandits’ and not ‘Naparamas’ – Watch

1:30 CAT | 22 Apr 2025

Screen grab; MBC TV

The Mozambican Defence Minister has distanced the perpetrators of attacks using bladed weapons from the local guerrillas traditionally known as ‘Naparamas’, promising to combat the new incursions recorded mainly in the centre and north of Mozambique.

“What is happening now is that there are groups that call themselves Naparamas but that, due to the way they act, are not (…) that is not the concept of Naparamas (…),” Cristóvão Chume told the press yesterday, after attending with parliamentary committees in the Assembly of the Republic in Maputo.

The Naparamas are a Mozambican community paramilitary groups that emerged in the 1980s, during the civil war, combining traditional knowledge and mystical elements to fight enemies.

Historically, the Naparama classify themselves as a force that spontaneously organized itself for the self-defence of the population in the face of war, and its members undergo initiation rites, designed to give them alleged “supernatural protection” that they believe makes them immune, even to bullets.

In recent months, Mozambican authorities have acknowledged a series of attacks on state institutions in different parts of northern and central Mozambique, mainly the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Zambézia, incursions attributed to a new and ill-defined group.

“These groups (…) are not Naparama, they are bandits (…) and because they represent a risk to the country’s security, they will be fought by the police and the armed forces, and we will not rest until they are eliminated,” Minister Chume said.

At least five members of the group were killed on Thursday after attempting to attack a Mozambican police position in the district of Malema, in the province of Nampula, the police force in that part of the country said on Saturday.

READ: Mozambique: At least five ‘Naparamas’ killed in Mutuali, Malema district – Watch

“The group arrived armed with spears, machetes, sledgehammers and other blunt instruments, as well as stones,” spokesperson for the Mozambican Republic Police in Nampula Rosa Chaúque told a press conference in the northern province.

In February, four alleged members of a Naparama paramilitary group were killed in clashes with the Mozambican Republic Police (PRM) while trying to invade an administrative post in the central province of Zambézia, an official source said at the time.

On January 2, alleged members of the group beheaded a neighbourhood secretary in Morrumbala district, Zambézia province, and placed the victim’s head in a public square, a police source told Lusa.

Also in Nampula province, the PRM shot seven members of the same group who were trying to invade an administrative post there, police authorities said on February 7, without confirming whether the seven were killed.

On 12 February, the President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, asked the new deputy commander-general of the PRM, Aquilasse Manda, to combat attacks attributed to the Naparamas paramilitary group, carried out in Zambézia province, indicating that they were “attempting to block” transit routes vital for the country’s development.