Mozambique. Reconstruction of Mocimboa town will include urban redevelopment

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Mozambique. Reconstruction of Mocimboa town will include urban redevelopment

3:45 CAT | 01 Aug 2022

FILE - Illustrative photo. [File photo: Euronews]

The reconstruction of the town of Mocímboa da Praia, among those worst affected by the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado, will include urban redevelopment to improve the lives of residents and strengthen neighbourhood security, the Cabo Delgado provincial government has said.

“We need to review [urban planning], so that residents return to better conditions,” said the director of the Provincial Services for the Environment in Cabo Delgado, Reinildo Jamane, quoted today by Rádio Moçambique.

The redevelopment of Mocímboa da Praia is part of Cabo Delgado province’s Reorganisation Plan.

Germano said that a technical team would be sent there shortly to carry out a study and survey the needs to be taken into consideration.

Mocímboa da Praia is where armed groups carried out their first attack, on October 5, 2017, and its headquarters village was, for a long time, described as the rebel ‘base’.

Over its more-than one year in the hands of rebels, Mocímboa da Praia was looted and almost all of its public and private infrastructure was destroyed, including energy, water, communications and hospitals infrastructure.

In total, about 62,000 people – almost the entire population – left the coastal village due to the conflict over the next four years, especially after the intensification of rebel actions in June, 2020.

The rehabilitation of state infrastructure destroyed in at least seven districts affected by the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado will cost close to 638 million meticais (around €10 million), according to figures released by the Ministry of State Administration and Public Service in July. Most of that will be used to rebuild state infrastructure in Mocímboa da Praia.

READ: Mocímboa da Praia: Containers to accommodate state administration services – Notícias

Overall, the Cabo Delgado Reconstruction Plan, approved by the Council of Ministers of Mozambique in September last year, is budgeted at 256 million euros and aims to respond to the destruction, as well as the humanitarian crisis caused by the armed attacks that broke out in the province in 2017.

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 784,000 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.

Source: Lusa / Radio Moçambique