Mozambique: Terrorists driven out of Quissanga district – Cabo Delgado governor

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Mozambique: Terrorists driven out of Quissanga district – Cabo Delgado governor

3:06 CAT | 20 Mar 2024

Image: Google Maps

The governor of Cabo Delgado province confirmed on Wednesday that rebel groups that had occupied the district of Quissanga since the start of March have fled, including from the district capital, and that the local population is now receiving support.

“We are already gaining access gradually, from village to village, so that we can provide comfort to the population and deliver humanitarian aid,” Valige Tauabo told journalists in Pemba, the provincial capital.

Governor Tauabo recalled that the actions of these groups foresees the involvement of the population, which “serves as a shield”, conditioning the intervention of the Defence and Security Forces on the ground in Quissanga, who have nonetheless now managed to put the terrorists to flight.

“When the terrorists have our population around them, there is also a better way to create conditions so that there is no attack,” the governor explained.

The authorities have found public infrastructure and services destroyed or “sabotaged” in the areas occupied by the terrorists for the last two weeks, Tauabo said. Some of the damaged buildings were already undergoing rehabilitation following previous attacks.

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, which have limited circulation to some 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).

The Mozambican 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.

“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.

Source: Lusa