Mozambique: Unidentified armed group loots, burns homes in Cabo Delgado province – Lusa

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Mozambique: Unidentified armed group loots, burns homes in Cabo Delgado province – Lusa

3:22 CAT | 30 Aug 2022

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

An unidentified armed group looted and burned houses in a village in Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, on Monday, according to local sources, in a region that has been plagued by violence since 2017.

“They entered Nacuale,” Ancuabe district, southern province, during the afternoon, a witness said. “We were talking in the centre of the village, we heard noise at the edge of the village and it was armed men – hooded – who opened fire.”

There was a shootout with members of the defence and security forces who were stationed at the scene, according to other sources. There were no reports of casualties, but several traditional houses were burned and residents’ goods stolen.

Locals and the authorities suspect that the group is part of the rebel movement that has been terrorising Cabo Delgado since October 2017.

A military offensive with support from several African countries has in the past year liberated the areas around the natural gas development projects in the north of the province, but scattered insurgent groups have attacked settlements elsewhere.

Since June, violence has hit the Ancuabe area to the south, near Pemba, the provincial capital.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in July highlighted the severity of these new attacks, which have resulted in the displacement of 36,000 people in districts that had previously been considered to be safe.

The figure is in addition to the nearly 800,000 displaced by the wave of violence already. Around 4,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives in the attacks.

Source: Lusa