Mozambique: Terrorism ‘serious threat’, but not a religious conflict – president

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Mozambique: Terrorism ‘serious threat’, but not a religious conflict – president

8:28 CAT | 05 Oct 2023

Photo: AIM

The president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, said on Wednesday today that the terrorism that has been affecting the province of Cabo Delgado for six years is a “serious new threat to peace” but stressed that it is not a religious conflict.

“A serious new threat to peace in Mozambique is terrorism, a phenomenon that has been affecting our country, specifically the province of Cabo Delgado, since October 2017. The brutality with which the terrorists operate has made it clear that this is not a religious conflict, but a phenomenon driven by factors such as money laundering, drug trafficking, squandering of mineral resources, among other types of crime,” said the President in Maputo, during the ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of the General Peace Agreement between Renamo and the Mozambican authorities.

The first insurgent attack took place on 5 October 2017 in the district of Mocímboa da Praia, Cabo Delgado province, and the Islamic State terrorist organisation claimed several of these actions.

Since 2017, the conflict in northern Mozambique has displaced more than a million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

“As we have said before, the terrorists are no longer in the villages, we have dismantled their main bases, and they have started to act defensively and in small groups, carrying out small sporadic attacks to loot food from the population and perpetuate the terror. With the improvement in order and tranquillity, the populations have been returning en masse to their areas of origin, resuming their lives with normality,” said Filipe Nyusi.

In the same speech, the head of state said that at the moment, the “big challenge is the reconstruction of infrastructure and the consolidation of social cohesion” in Cabo Delgado, whose actions are taking place within the framework of a strategic programme for the integrated development of the northern zone, “which has the support of various cooperation partners”.

In Cabo Delgado province, the Mozambican Armed Defence Forces have been fighting terrorism – in attacks that have been taking place since October 2017 and which have affected the progress of natural gas production projects in the region – since July 2021, with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Source: Lusa