Mozambique: Terrorists attack Mucojo again – AIM report

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Mozambique: Terrorists attack Mucojo again – AIM report

3:45 CAT | 14 Oct 2020

Image: Google Maps

Islamist terrorists attacked Nambo and Pangane, two villages in the Mucojo administrative post, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, between Friday and Monday, reports Wednesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.

The raiders murdered ten people, three in Nambo and seven in Pangane. Two Mozambican soldiers were among the dead in Pangane.

The terrorists also kidnapped 60 people in Pangane and two in Nambo. They set houses, shops and vehicles on fire, including two vehicles of the defence and security forces. People displaced from their homes in the villages fled to the district capital, Macomia town, and to Matemo island, off the coast.

This was the second attack on Mucojo in the space of a fortnight. Between 30 September and 6 October, the terrorists occupied several Mucojo villages and the headquarters of the administrative post, where they flew the black flag of the international terror organisation that calls itself “Islamic State”.

According to a second newssheet, “Mediafax”, the terrorists attacked in force, greatly outnumbering the members of the defence and security forces, whose two positions were overwhelmed.

Local sources said the terrorists murdered, vandalised and looted, making it clear to the residents that they wanted nobody to stay in Mucojo. They even gave some elderly villagers money to catch buses to leave, telling them “Go to Maputo and stay with your President Nyusi”.

Nonetheless, one vehicle braved the 70 kilometre road from Mucojo to Macomia town on Friday (before the second attack). The occupants of the vehicle found the jihadists had placed barricades of tree trunks at ten points along the road.

One person who travelled in this vehicle said “the car left from Naunde village and went to Macomia town. They didn’t burn it because the car was hidden in the bush, and the insurgents didn’t see it”. People who had slept in the bush piled into the vehicle, and left the village deserted.

Others fled from the terrorists on foot. 43 year old Maquina Selemene said she had walked with her two children, one aged seven and the other ten, from Mucojo to Macomia town. The journey, she said, took six days and nights without anything to eat or drink. She had walked through the bush to avoid being spotted by the terrorists. From Macomia, she travelled on to her cousin’s house in the provincial capital, Pemba.

Source: Carta de Moçambique