Muslim Hate in Mozambique
Mozambique’s jihadi rebels launch new offensive in north
A
new offensive by Mozambique’s Islamic extremist rebels in the embattled
northern province of Cabo Delgado has increased the number of displaced
by 80,000 and undermines the government’s claims of containing the
insurgency.
Associated Press
August 23, 2022
The
rebels have expanded their area in a campaign that has lasted for more
than two months. The new offensive, which started in June, follows a
period of relative calm when the commander-general of Mozambique's
national police had declared that “the war against terrorism is almost
at an end.”
That
claim proved to be hollow as the fighters have struck further south
than ever before, burning villages and beheading civilians in the
Ancuabe, Chiure and Mecufi districts which had previously been
untouched by the conflict since it began in October 2017.
The
latest bout of violence brings the total number of people displaced in
Cabo Delgado to just under 950,000, according to estimates by the
International Organization for Migration.
Despite
the military support that Mozambique is receiving from troops sent by
neighboring countries and Rwanda, the rebels are far from defeated. The
foreign troops were deployed in Cabo Delgado a year ago, following the
extremists' seizure of the strategic town of Palma in March, 2021.
“The
prevalence of attacks a year after the beginning of the foreign
military intervention confirms what was already clear" that the
government is wrong to say the insurrection has been caused by an
external invasion with obscure interests, said Albino Forquilha,
executive director of FOMICRES, an independent peacebuilding
organization in Mozambique.
“The
truth is that the conflict has internal origins due to bad governance
and a poor relationship between the state and the local population,”
Forquilha continued. “As long as the government ignores this fact, the
attacks will not stop.”
Mozambique's
security forces and the allied foreign troops have succeeded in driving
insurgents from the main towns of Cabo Delgado into the forests, but
this has effectively put rural civilians on the frontline. Since June,
the insurgency has been characterized by relentless hit-and-run
assaults on undefended villages, forcing the military and police
off-balance as they rush to respond from one incident to the next.
“In
the context of logistical limitations, whether due to the number of
soldiers or military equipment, the increase in the number of attacks
across dispersed areas will limit the pursuit of armed groups by
government forces and their partners,” said João Feijó, a researcher at
the Mozambique-based Observatory of the Rural Environment. “It is a
strategy that aims to increase the difficulties for government forces
and their partners, and they need to devise an adequate response to
this.”
The
16-nation Southern African Development Community is due to decide in
August whether to further extend its military intervention, which
originally had a mandate for three months, beginning in July 2021.
The
experience of the last year suggests that more than just military force
is needed to bring the insurgency to heel, say analysts.
“I
do not see a quick end to these attacks,” said Forquilha. “Even if the
military intervention had managed to expel the insurgents, I don’t
doubt that dissatisfaction would continue in the minds of the youth.
Because the problem here is not destroying insurgent bases, it is
getting young people to identify with the state.”
Mozambique: Hundreds of women, girls abducted
ISIS-Linked Militants Should Free Captives; Authorities Should Assist Survivors
Human Rights Watch
December 7, 2021
(Johannesburg)
– An armed group linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) has since 2018
kidnapped and enslaved more than 600 women and girls in Mozambique’s
northern Cabo Delgado province, Human Rights Watch said today.
Mozambican and regional forces have rescued some of them, but many
remain missing.
The
group, known locally as Al Sunnah wa Jama’ah (ASWJ) and Al-Shabab (or
mashababos) forced younger, healthy-looking, and lighter-skinned women
and girls in their custody to “marry” their fighters, who enslave and
sexually abuse them. Others have been sold to foreign fighters for
between 40,000 and 120,000 Meticais (US$600 to US$1,800). Abducted
foreign women and girls, in particular, have been released after their
families paid ransom.
“Al
Shabab’s leaders should immediately release every woman and girl in
their captivity,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights
Watch. “They should take all necessary steps to prevent rape and sexual
abuse by their fighters, end child marriage, forced marriage, and the
sale and enslavement of women and girls at their bases and areas of
operation.”
Between
August 2019 and October 2021, Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed
37 people, including former abductees, their relatives, security
sources, and government officials, and monitored media reports about
kidnappings. They said that Al-Shabab abducted women and girls during
attacks in various Cabo Delgado districts, including Mocímboa da Praia
in March, June, and August 2020, and Palma in March 2021.
A
33-year-old woman said that Al-Shabab fighters assaulted her aunt, a
local official, and forced her at gunpoint to identify all the houses
containing girls between ages 12 and 17 in Diaca town, Mocimboa da
Praia. The woman counted 203 girls but did not know whether the
fighters abducted all the girls. “Some mothers were begging the
fighters to take them instead of their daughters,” a 27-year-old man
said. “But one of the mashababos said they didn’t want old women with
children and diseases.”
A
34-year-old former abductee from Mocimboa da Praia said he was forced
to select the women and girls for sex with the fighters on their return
from military operations. “Those [women] who refused were punished with
beatings, and no food for days.”
On
April 30, the African Union Commission’s special envoy on women, peace,
and security, Bineta Diop, called on the Mozambique government,
regional bodies, and the international community to “act swiftly and
provide adequate support” to women and girls who had been held and
mistreated by Al-Shabab.
In
recent years, the Mozambican authorities have made some progress
rescuing hundreds of kidnap victims from the group’s bases. However,
the authorities have kept those liberated incommunicado for weeks or
longer without access to relatives, ostensibly for security screenings.
In
October, an official in the Cabo Delgado governor’s office told Human
Rights Watch that the army was holding hundreds of people, mostly women
and children, freed from the group’s bases in the Complexo Desportivo
de Pemba (Pemba Sports Complex). The soldiers were holding them to
separate civilians from suspected fighters. The official said that
those held in the facility were receiving medical attention, including
psychosocial (mental health) support, but did not specify the nature of
the help or who was providing it.
Mozambican
authorities and international and regional partners, including the
Southern African Development Community (SADC), should provide
rights-respecting, gender-sensitive, child-sensitive, and dignified
reintegration and rehabilitation services, including comprehensive
post-rape care, to rescued women and girls, Human Rights Watch said.
The authorities should fully investigate and appropriately prosecute
Al-Shabab leaders and fighters for abductions, child and forced
marriages, rape and sexual violence, enslavement, and other
gender-based crimes in violation of international and Mozambican law.
Al-Shabab’s
abuses against women and girls also contravene regional and
international human rights law and violate international humanitarian
law. Specialized international and regional treaties on women’s and
children’s rights, including the Protocol to the African Charter on
Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo
Protocol), ensure the right to be free from sexual and gender-based
violence, including reproductive violence. Under these instruments, the
Mozambique government has obligations to prevent, investigate,
prosecute, and punish those responsible for abuses as well as provide
timely, accessible, and effective remedies to victims and survivors.
“An
unknown number of women and girls remain in captivity in Mozambique,
facing horrific abuses daily, including enslavement and rape by
Al-Shabab fighters,” Segun said. “Mozambican authorities should
intensify efforts to rescue and reintegrate survivors into their
communities, and promptly ensure their humane treatment and access to
medical and psychosocial services.”
For more details about the humanitarian crisis and abduction of women and girls in Cabo Delgado, please see below.
Humanitarian Crisis in Cabo Delgado Province
Since
October 2017, Al-Shabab has attacked numerous villages, killed more
than 2,500 people, and destroyed extensive civilian property and
infrastructure, including schools and health centers, in Cabo Delgado.
More than 800,000 people have been displaced since April 2020 following
an escalation in the violence.
In
April 2018, the armed group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. In
August 2019, ISIS acknowledged the group as an affiliate and has since
claimed responsibility for several of its attacks. In the past four
years, Al-Shabab has committed more than 1,000 attacks against
government military targets and civilian population centers in Cabo
Delgado’s northern districts of Macomia, Mocimboa da Praia, Muidumbe,
Nangade, Palma, and Quissanga.
On
June 23, 2021, after months of deliberations, the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) approved the deployment of its Standby
Force to Mozambique, SAMIM. The next month, Rwanda, which is not a SADC
member, sent 1,000 soldiers to Cabo Delgado under a separate agreement
with the Mozambican government. Since then, Mozambican troops backed by
Rwandan and SADC forces have regained some areas controlled by
Al-Shabab in Mocímboa da Praia district, and drove fighters out of
Palma town.
The names of former abductees are pseudonyms to protect their privacy.
Macomia District
The
media reported that on November 3, 2018, Al-Shabab fighters raided and
looted shops and markets in Unidade village, Macomia, and burned 45
homes, a school, and a mosque. Two sisters, “Anchia,” 23, and “Lurdes,”
19, told Human Rights Watch in August 2019 that they fled the attack
with other villagers and hid on their family farm. Late that night, six
men armed with machetes and AK-47 assault rifles discovered them.
Anchia said the leader, called Abdul, asked her and her sister about
their husbands and children. When she responded that they were both
unmarried, the man replied, “You will be my wives and I will give you
children.”
The
armed men then forced the two women to walk for hours. They arrived
about midday on November 4 at a camp hidden in the bush around the town
of Quiterajo. They said they saw about 30 other women and girls in the
camp, some of whom the camp leader sold as brides or offered to
fighters for sex or to be their “wives.” The camp leader, whom they
called “sheik,” gave Anchia and Lurdes to Abdul, who moved them to a
nearby camp, where they lived with him for six months.
Anchia
said: We lived a normal life: praying, cooking, going to the farm, and
taking care of children [from other women in the camp]. One night, in
early May [2019], government forces arrived in the camp. We ran to hide
by the riverbank. When we returned in the morning, the soldiers had
killed four men, including Abdul, and taken the other people in the
camp.
The
sisters fled to Pemba. There, they have lived with a church woman and
helped her with house chores while the church group gave them food and
clothes. Lurdes described the long-term consequences of their abduction:
I don’t want to look for our relatives here in Pemba because I don’t want them to know that I am pregnant [from Abdul].
Reports of women being kidnapped in Macomia continued into October 2021.
Mocímboa da Praia Town
Mocímboa
da Praia town has experienced at least three Al-Shabab attacks,
accompanied by the abduction of women and girls, starting in March
2020. The armed group briefly occupied the town in June 2020 but seized
full control in August 2020 after intense fighting with government
forces. Joint Mozambican and Rwandan forces regained control of the
town in August 2021. The fighting displaced more than 6,000 people.
“Muna,”
36, who arrived in Pemba from Mocímboa da Praia on October 26, 2020,
said that Al-Shabab abducted his wife and three daughters from the town
during the March 2020 attack:
Fifteen
mashababos armed with guns came in two Isuzu vans and found me, my
wife, and my three daughters hiding at the back of the house. One of
them grabbed my younger daughters, ages 12 and 14 years. Another one
grabbed my 17-year-old daughter and started touching her breasts. I got
angry and I threw a stone at him, which made them hit me so hard that I
lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in pain and alone. My girls
and my wife were gone.… There is not one day that I don’t think of them.
Four
other people who fled to Pemba said that before leaving Mocímboa da
Praia, they saw Al-Shabab fighters drive between 30 to 100 adolescent
girls in vans toward the southern side of town.
“Fatimah,” 43, said that Al-Shabab fighters kidnapped her 14- and 16-year-old daughters on March 23, 2020:
We
hid under the beds when we saw the mashababos driving in vans along our
street. Things happened so fast. They forced open our front door, came
inside the room, and took the girls. I ran outside to try to stop them.
But my daughters were already in the van with many other girls.
A
month later, when the fighting had temporarily ceased, Fatimah’s
husband received a phone call from someone claiming to be an Al-Shabab
leader, who demanded a 1 million meticais ($15,000) ransom to release
his two daughters. After he paid the ransom, the girls were released
and the family fled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Fatimah said her
daughters remain deeply traumatized: “The younger one doesn’t talk to
men, not even her father. She has nightmares at night and refuses to go
to school.” She said that the girls were receiving counseling from a
local religious group.
Al-Shabab
fighters abducted more women and girls during a June 2020 attack on
Mocímboa da Praia. Media reports said fighters kidnapped eight girls,
but a local businessman and a religious leader said that they thought
the number was higher.
“Assumana,”
33, said that during an Al-Shabab attack, fighters forced her
54-year-old aunt, a community leader, to point out the houses of girls
between ages 12 and 17:
In
the morning on June 29 [2020], four mashababos, one of whom was a
former neighbor, came to our house looking for my aunt. They called her
by her name and told her that if she wanted her family to be spared,
she had to collaborate with them. They ordered her to take them to all
the houses of families with girls. My aunt refused and cried, begging
for mercy. One of the men slapped her face and pointed an assault rifle
to her head. She had to obey them.
Assumana
said that the girls were forced onto two big buses and driven north
toward Pundanhar town. The aunt confirmed that the fighters had forced
her to identify more than 200 girls, but she did not remember more
details. She has since been receiving mental health services, according
to a psychiatrist with knowledge of her case.
“Faizal,”
27, said that during the June 2020 attack, the Al-Shabab fighters “told
me and the other men to lie down on the floor. The leader of the group
kept repeating that they had not come there for us, the men. They only
wanted young women and girls.”
The
abductions continued after Al-Shabab took control of Mocímboa da Praia
in August 2020. Local residents said that Al-Shabab fighters kidnapped
hundreds of women and girls, including two Brazilian nuns. The nuns
were released 24 days later, on September 6. There was no information
about whether a ransom was paid.
“Sara,”
24, who was kidnapped in Mocímboa da Praia on August 8, 2020, said that
fighters took her and other women and girls in trucks and buses to the
forest. Once Al-Shabab gained control of the town, they brought the
captives back to abandoned houses there. She said:
They
separated us according to age and skin color. The darker women were
given tasks to clean, cook, farm.… Sometimes, when [the fighters]
returned from fighting, they would choose some of them for sex. The
light-complexioned women were their favorite for brides. The Indians,
whites, and mulattas [mixed race] like me were kept separate. They said
our relatives would pay for us.
Sara
was held for 22 days before fighters took her in a series of vehicles
to Montepuez, more than 300 kilometers away, where her husband was
waiting. He had paid one million meticais ($15,000) for her freedom.
Two
men, “Gani,” 38, and “Ashaf,” 34, whom Al-Shabab kidnapped in August
2020 from Mocimboa da Praia, said that they were forced into helping
the militants sexually abuse kidnapped women and girls who were
detained in abandoned houses in the town. Gani said:
We
separated the young women and girls from the other women, and took them
to another house, where once – sometimes twice – a week, mashababo
fighters arriving from their battles, would sleep with them or take
those they wanted to another place until the morning. Some older women
[were forced to] help us to exclude [from the group of sex slaves]
those women who were having their monthly period or were sick.
Ashaf
said: Sometimes, two or three fighters wanted the same woman. To avoid
them fighting among themselves, I would force the women to go [have
sex] with all of them for the sake of peace. If they refused, I would
beat them or punish them with isolation, no food, no bath. But most
women were obedient.
Palma
On
March 24, 2021, Al-Shabab fighters raided the gas-producing town of
Palma, killing and wounding an unknown number of civilians. Several
witnesses said that they saw bodies on the streets and residents
fleeing as fighters fired indiscriminately at people and buildings.
Five
days after the attack, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province
(ISCAP) claimed their allies in Mozambique had taken control of Palma,
which security sources confirmed to Human Rights Watch. “Rute,” 32, a
nurse, said that she hid at a farm on the outskirts of town for two
days when the attack started. On March 26, as she tried to leave for
Afungi, where displaced people were being evacuated, 15 armed men in
uniform caught her:
I
initially thought they were soldiers. But when I saw the red bands on
their heads, I realized they were Al-Shabab. They gave me food and
water and took me to the mosque downtown, where some men were being
held hostage. They took one man and cut his throat in front of me and
told me... “This is what will happen to you if you try to flee.
That
night, the fighters took Rute to join hundreds of other women and girls
kept in four houses in a neighborhood in the town center. As government
forces aerially bombed Palma on March 29, the fighters drove the women
and children in three trucks through the forests of Pundanhar. They
then forced them to walk in the rain from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. when the
road became impassable for vehicles, until they reached Mocímboa da
Praia.
A
man known as Sheikh Omar or “Rei da Floresta” (King of the Jungle), was
in charge of the camp where Rute lived for six weeks, cleaning,
farming, and cooking for the Al-Shabab fighters. She said that she
pretended to be infected with HIV-AIDS to avoid being sexually abused
or picked as a wife. Sheikh Omar eventually released Rute and four
other apparently sick women near the border with Tanzania.
“Grace,”
a 27-year-old Zimbabwean national who had been abducted, said that
Al-Shabab transported her from Palma to Mocímboa da Praia on March 29.
She said she was released in June:
Many
foreigners were released after their families paid ransom. I think
[Al-Shabab] eventually realized my family didn’t have the money they
wanted. At the orders of Sheikh Omar, I was moved to the women workers’
house. We were treated like slaves. Among [the workers] were women with
children and non-Muslims who had difficulty learning the Quran [during
the indoctrination sessions]. We cooked, went to the farm, cleaned…
sometimes Omar would call us “useless infidels.
“Farida,”
26, said young, healthy women were given as “gifts” to the fighters
while women who were sick were sent to the women workers’ house. Others
were sold to men from Tanzania who were part of the ASWJ Tanzania cell:
There
were many fighters – some young men, boys whom I recognized from Palma.
They had disappeared from the town around November 2020. When they
returned to the camp from fighting [elsewhere in the province], Sheikh
Omar would give them gifts of kidnapped women [for sex]. He would
personally screen the women and separate out the ones who were sick.
Six
people who fled Mocímboa da Praia after the Mozambican and Rwandan
forces retook the town said that they observed several pregnant young
women and girls, and others with children apparently fathered by the
fighters also fleeing the town.
“Samira,”
18, fled Al-Shabab bases in Mocímboa da Praia and arrived in Macomia
town alongside several other women and girls on September 15, 2021 She
said she had been kidnapped from Macomia and then forcibly married to a
fighter from Tanzania in June 2020:
We
were four wives. He took two of them to Tanzania, but the other woman
and I stayed in the village camp near Mbau. When fighting began around
the end of July or early August, the fighters told us to run. I
couldn’t run much because I was pregnant, so I hid in the bush for
three days. Then a group of displaced people found me and brought me
back to Macomia.
Mozambican Government Response
The
Mozambican authorities have made little progress in rescuing kidnapped
women and girls, relative to the estimated numbers of people abducted.
On
January 13, 2021, Mozambican police chief Bernardino Rafael presented
15 women and 6 children rescued by government forces to reporters. He
said Al-Shabab had taken them during an attack on Matemo island, Ibo
district, on January 6.
In
July, Mozambican army commander Cristóvão Chume said government forces
had rescued 120 women and children from an Al-Shabab camp in Palma. In
October, the BBC reported that joint Mozambican and Rwanda forces had
rescued some women in Pemba.
In
September, SAMIM rescued three older women from an Al-Shabab base,
south of the Messalo River, and handed them over to Mozambican
authorities. Rwandan troops reported in October that they rescued an
undisclosed number of women across Cabo Delgado, one of whom had
allegedly been kept as a sex slave for more than a year.
In
some cases, the women and girls appear to have been re-victimized by
their rescuers. Three relatives of survivors and a government source
said that government forces were holding rescued women and girls
against their will inside the Complexo Desportivo de Pemba (Pemba
Sports Complex).
“Charifo”
said in October that he tried to visit his wife, who was kidnapped in
2019, after learning she was at the sports complex, but soldiers turned
him back, telling him he could not see her yet. “How long should I
wait?” he said. “My children and I have waited too long.”
Nasiima,
whose 16-year-old daughter was abducted in Palma in 2021, described the
complex’s atmosphere of secrecy: “My daughter has been inside there for
two weeks now. They won’t release her. They won’t tell us anything. We
can’t even get near the place because it is heavily guarded by
soldiers. Why are they punishing us like this?”
As
of November, Mozambican authorities continued to hold incommunicado
hundreds of people rescued by the joint Mozambican, Rwandan, and SADC
forces across Cabo Delgado province at the Pemba sports complex.
Recommendations
To Al-Shabab (ASWJ) and other non-state armed groups
• Immediately release all civilians, especially women and girls, in its custody.
• End all abductions, kidnappings for ransom, child
and forced marriages, enslavement, and sale of women and girls.
• Appropriately punish all commanders and fighters
responsible for rape, sexual abuse, child and forced marriage, and
exploitation of women and girls.
To the Mozambique government
• Ensure humane treatment for all those rescued from
armed groups. Provide their family members with timely information
about their whereabouts and access while in government custody.
• Provide adequate, accessible medical and mental
health and psychosocial support services to survivors of rape, sexual
abuse, child and forced marriage, kidnappings, and other abuses in the
armed groups.
• Facilitate referrals and access to emergency
medical treatment and mental health and psychosocial support services
for women and girls in camps for internally displaced people.
• Ensure that medical facilities treating former
abductees have procedures in place to respond to sexual violence,
including screening and medical supplies to provide comprehensive,
accessible post-rape care in accordance with World Health Organization
(WHO) standards.
• Provide specialized training for health care and
social service providers to ensure care, treatment, and support to
survivors of armed groups abductions.
• Investigate and prosecute in fair trials members of
non-state armed groups who are responsible for sexual violence and
other crimes against women and girls.
To the International Community including SADC, the African Union, United Nations, European Union, and United States
• Press the Mozambican government to ensure the
humane treatment and prompt release of all women and girls rescued from
armed groups.
• Support the provision of accessible post-trauma,
psychosocial and mental health services for all the kidnapped women and
girls, especially the victims of sexual violence and abuse.
• Ensure that any support to the Mozambican security
forces to assist kidnapped women and girls is fully consistent with
international human rights standards.
• Support investigations and appropriate prosecution
of members of non-state armed groups responsible for sexual violence
and other abuses against women and girls.
Witnesses
describe beheaded bodies in the streets as government confirms dozens dead in Mozambique attack
Dozens of people were killed in coordinated
jihadist attacks in northern Mozambique's Palma town this week, the government
says.
March 28, 2021
Reuters
Dozens of people have been killed in an attack
on the northern Mozambique town of Palma this week, a spokesman for the
country's defence and security forces says, including
seven people when a convoy of cars was ambushed in an escape attempt.
Hundreds of other people, both local and
foreigners, have been rescued from the town next to gas projects, Omar Saranga told journalists on Sunday.
A British contractor was among the dead, killed
when suspected Islamist insurgents attacked his hotel compound, The Times
reported.
Hundreds of people fleeing the attack are
arriving by boat in the port city of Pemba, a diplomat and an aid worker said.
Militants struck Palma, a logistics hub for
international gas projects worth $A79 billion, on Wednesday.
The government has yet to re-establish control,
the diplomat and a security source directly involved in the operations to
secure Palma said.
Reuters could not independently verify the
accounts as most communications with Palma were cut on Wednesday.
Calls to officials at the foreign ministry and
provincial government went unanswered or did not go through on Sunday.
The government has said it is working to
restore order in Palma.
The boats arriving in Pemba on Sunday carried
both locals and foreigners, including employees from the gas projects, the aid
official and diplomat said.
One boat was carrying about 1300 people, the
diplomat said.
French energy group Total said on Saturday it
was calling off a planned resumption of construction at its $US20 billion
development following the attack and would reduce its workforce to a
"strict minimum".
The company pulled out the majority of its
workforce in January due to insecurity in Cabo Delgado province, which has been
the target of an Islamist insurgency since 2017.
Witnesses have described bodies in the streets
of Palma, some of them beheaded.
On Friday, militants ambushed a convoy of
people including foreign workers attempting to escape a hotel.
A South African woman, Meryl Knox, told Reuters
that her son Adrian Nel died in the attack.
Her husband and another son hid with his body
in the bush until the following morning when they were able to make it to
safety in Pemba, she said.
Government-contracted helicopters were
searching for more survivors.
Lionel Dyck, who runs a private security firm
working with the government, said his helicopters had rescued at least 17
people on Sunday.
The number of people injured and killed in the
four-day assault on Palma, or still unaccounted for, remained unclear.
The town had previously been a refuge for
people fleeing violence elsewhere in the province.
Mozambique
conflict: Why have 500,000 people been forced to flee their homes?
The conflict with
Islamist militants has been going on since 2017, but has recently ramped up.
Friday 5
February 2021
More than
500,000 people have been displaced from a ruby and oil-rich region of
Mozambique in what the UN has called "a perfect storm of instability".
The people of
Cabo Delgado, the country's northernmost province, are dealing with an
insurgency by Islamist militants, food insecurity, extreme weather, disease and
government failures.
Reliable
information is severely lacking from the region as journalists face
intimidation, with two local reporters held for months in a military prison in
2019, while international media has been refused permission to enter.
As Sky's Africa
John Sparks reports, the crisis has gone largely unnoticed by the
rest of the world.
This is what
is happening.
Who are Ansar al-Sunna and when did the insurgency begin?
In 2017, a
group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna (translation: supporters of the tradition)
started carrying out attacks on government and civilian targets in Cabo
Delgado, a province rich in rubies and oil and with a population that is 54%
Muslim - whereas most of Mozambique is
Christian.
The group was
reportedly formed in 2015 by followers of the radical Muslim Kenyan cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed, who
resettled in Mozambique after his death in 2012.
Mozambicans
call them Al-Shabaab, but they are not the same as the terror group in Somalia.
Ansar al-Sunna
want to establish an Islamic state in the region and claim the Islam practised in Mozambique has been corrupted and no longer
follows Muhammad's teachings.
Its members,
which have grown to the thousands, have tried preventing people from going to
hospitals or schools as they consider them secular and anti-Islamic.
Mozambicans
make up the majority of their members, many who hold grudges against the
government, but they are also known to come from Tanzania and Somalia.
The group has
become increasingly violent since 2017 and is now calling for Sharia law across
Mozambique, while it no longer recognises the
government and has created hidden training camps to fight against the military.
There have
been numerous attacks on government buildings, mosques and civilians, with
decapitations and the burning down of houses becoming their modus operandi.
Since March
2020, the violence has increased further and the insurgents have taken control
of numerous villages, towns and districts, and the conflict has crossed the
border into Tanzania.
Ansar al-Sunna
want to establish an Islamic state in the region and claim the Islam practised in Mozambique has been corrupted and no longer
follows Muhammad's teachings.
Its members,
which have grown to the thousands, have tried preventing people from going to
hospitals or schools as they consider them secular and anti-Islamic.
Mozambicans
make up the majority of their members, many who hold grudges against the
government, but they are also known to come from Tanzania and Somalia.
The group has
become increasingly violent since 2017 and is now calling for Sharia law across
Mozambique, while it no longer recognises the
government and has created hidden training camps to fight against the military.
There have
been numerous attacks on government buildings, mosques and civilians, with
decapitations and the burning down of houses becoming their modus operandi.
Since March
2020, the violence has increased further and the insurgents have taken control
of numerous villages, towns and districts, and the conflict has crossed the
border into Tanzania.
Massive
displacement and loss of life
More than
2,500 people have been killed in the conflict since it started in 2017.
By December
2020, more than 530,000 people (nearly a quarter of Cabo Delgado's population)
had been displaced from the province into neighbouring
Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces, UNHCR, the
UN's refugee agency, said.
Most of those
people were displaced in the last few months of 2020 and the numbers continue
to rise.
People have
been forced to flee their homes, leaving without their identification and civil
documents in most cases, making them even more vulnerable.
Most of them
are being given shelter by other communities, meaning they are living in
cramped and inadequate conditions, while others are living in temporary camps.
Women and
girls are "significantly vulnerable to gender-based violence", with
many being abducted, forced into marriages or prostitution, raped or subjected
to other forms of sexual violence, the UNHCR said.
More than half
of those displaced are women and nearly 15,000 are pregnant, but 36% of Cabo
Delgado's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed.
What are the
Mozambique government and the world doing?
Initially,
police were dealing with the insurgents. But as attacks became more frequent,
the military was sent in and has been battling them ever since.
The Russian
government sent over two military helicopters in late 2019 after signing a
military and technical cooperation agreement two years before.
Russian
mercenaries and defence contractors have been helping
local forces and in 2020, South Africa sent in
special forces troops to help, with South African private contractors also
helping.
Mozambique's neighbours fear the conflict is spilling into their
countries and have accused President Felipe Nyusi's
government of being ineffective and reluctant to ask for help.
Troops have
seen heavy losses during the conflict, including when more than a hundred died
in an unsuccessful days-long offensive to take back control of Mocinboa da Praia.
In September
2020, the government requested assistance from the EU, which was approved a
month later.
But Portugal's
foreign minister, whose government holds the rotating six-month EU presidency,
said the bloc's help was "very low" and needs to be increased,
specifically by training local forces.
EU foreign
minister Josep Borrell Fontalles
said not everything can be blamed on Ansar al-Sunna, adding: "The armed
violence in the northern part of Mozambique was triggered by poverty and
inequality and by the population of the areas losing respect for a state which
could not provide it what it needed.
"Mozambique
has the third-largest natural gas reserve in Africa after Nigeria and Algeria.
You can imagine that this leads to citizens feeling alienated. It is a rich
country and they are mired in poverty."
The US
reportedly asked Zimbabwe, a country it has placed sanctions on, to help
Mozambique.
In November
2020, the UN called for an international response to the insurgency, with
Tanzania and Malawi launching a joint military operation with Mozambique forces
soon after.
President Nyusi also met US counter-terrorism officials for
discussions, but the attacks continue to increase.
Militant Islamists
'behead more than 50' in Mozambique
November 9,
2020,
BBC
More than 50
people have been beheaded in northern Mozambique by militant Islamists, state
media report.
The militants
turned a football pitch in a village into an "execution ground", where
they decapitated and chopped bodies, other reports said.
Several people
were also beheaded in another village, state media reported.
The beheadings
are the latest in a series of gruesome attacks that the militants have carried
out in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province since 2017.
Up to 2,000
people have been killed and about 430,000 have been left homeless in the
conflict in the mainly-Muslim province.
The militants
are linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, giving it a foothold in southern
Africa.
The group has
exploited poverty and unemployment to recruit youth in their fight to establish
Islamic rule in the area.
Many locals
complain that they have benefited little from the province's ruby and gas
industries.
The BBC's Jose
Tembe reports from the capital, Maputo, that the
latest attack was probably the worst carried out by the militants.
Many people
are shocked, and they are calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, he
adds.
The gunmen
chanted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest", in English),
fired shots, and set homes alight when they raided Nanjaba
village on Friday night, the state-owned Mozambique News Agency quoted
survivors as saying.
Two people were
beheaded in the village and several women abducted,
the news agency added.
A separate
group of militants carried out another brutal attack on Muatide
village, where they beheaded more than 50 people, the news agency reported.
Villagers who
tried to flee were caught, and taken to the local football pitch where they
were beheaded and chopped to pieces in an atrocity carried out from Friday
night to Sunday, privately-run Pinnancle News
reported.
Mozambique's
government has appealed for international help to curb the insurgency, saying
its troops need specialised training.
In April, more
than 50 people were beheaded or shot dead in an attack on a village in Cabo
Delgado and earlier this month, nine people were beheaded in the same province.
Human rights
groups say Mozambican security forces have also carried human rights abuses,
including arbitrary arrests, torture and killings, during operations to curb
the insurgency.
Islamic State
now has its first outpost in southern Africa after capture of key port in
Mozambique
Julian Kossoff ,
Business Insider US
Aug 17,
2020,
Mozambique has
become the latest African stronghold of Islamic State (IS) after well-armed
insurgents captured a strategic port in the north of the country.
Fighters
affiliated to IS overran the port of Mocimboa da
Praia after several days of fighting earlier this week. The town is now under
Sharia law, according to The Times.
The latest
reports say government troops are still battling to regain control of the town
and hundreds of reinforcements have been rushed to the battle, the Guardian reported, on Sunday. Mercenaries from Russia and
South Africa have also been in combat for the government, said the report.
The Mozambican
defense minister, Jaime Neto, said that the extremists had infiltrated parts of
the port and "attacked the town from the inside out, causing destruction,
looting, and the murder of defenseless citizens", according to a report
from the local Zitamar news agency.
A conflict has
been bubbling in the region for three years with local jihadists who align
themselves with the Islamic State franchise - called
the Islamic State Central Africa Province - growing in confidence and military
strength. Since 2017, monitoring groups say more than 1,500 people have been
killed and at least 250,000 displaced from their homes in the area, reports Al
Jazeera.
Cabo Delgado
is a Muslim majority province and the Islamic militants have been able to
exploit local grievances and economic hardship to rally fighters around the IS
flag. Almost 20% of Mozambique's 32 million population are Muslims.
The loss of
the town is a severe blow to impoverished Mozambique. It is in the gas-rich northern
province of Cabo Delgado where energy giants, such as the French-owned Total,
are planning to develop offshore gas projects worth up to $60 billion (R1
trillion), according to Al Jazeera.
A deal struck
in July, which meant Mozambique would receive $14.9 billion in debt financing from Total, was one of
the largest single investment projects on the continent, according to Foreign
Policy.
Experts now fear Mozambique will become a regional center for Islamic
extremism. It borders six other African nations, including
South Africa.
9 Civilians Die
in Two Attacks in Northern Mozambique
By Andre Baptista, Sirwan Kajjo
July 30, 2020
VOA
CABO DELGADO,
MOZAMBIQUE/WASHINGTON - At least nine civilians were killed in new attacks
carried out by Islamist insurgents in the restive province of Cabo Delgado in
northern Mozambique, local sources said.
The attacks on
the districts of Mocimboa da Praia and Macomia of Cabo Delgado on Wednesday forced the local
population to flee their homes, seeking safety in nearby woods, residents told
VOA.
A group of
armed men “hooded with Islamic handkerchiefs” invaded the village
of Tandacua in Macomia,
searching for food, according to a local resident.
The insurgents
“arrived around 6 in the evening [local time], so many residents fled the
village,” the resident, who declined to give his name, told VOA.
“When we
returned the next day, we found eight dead people who were beheaded,” the
resident said, adding that “the security situation is getting more
complicated.”
On Tuesday,
Islamist militants entered the district of Mocimboa
da Praia, killing one civilian at a flour mill before seizing food and
livestock.
The insurgents
“entered Mocimboa da Praia twice this
week,” said Zunaid, a Mocimboa
da Praia resident who gave only his first name.
“After
they killed a man on Tuesday and left, they went in again [on Wednesday] to
steal more food,” he told VOA.
“All
residents are in the woods out of fear,” Zunaid
said, noting that “there are more military personnel than the local population,
but al-Shabab [militants] still come in and attack us.”
IS links
Since 2017,
militant attacks on civilians and government security forces in Cabo Delgado
have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced over 210,000 others, according
to the United Nations.
Locally known
as al-Shabab, Ahlu Sunna wa
Jama is the main militant group responsible for these attacks in northern
Mozambique. It is considered to be the Mozambique affiliate of the Islamic
State (IS) terror group.
However, Eric
Morier-Genoud, a Mozambique expert at Queen’s
University Belfast, says there is little “evidence that the Islamic State
is behind this group, which radicalized its positions in the face of many
existing inequalities” in the Muslim-majority province.
“The
group has approached the Islamic State, but it has little influence yet,”
he told VOA, adding that the extent of the connection between the local
militant group and IS “basically has been an exchange of information up
to now.”
In April 2019,
IS declared its so-called Central African Province, known as ISCAP. Attacks
attributed to its Central African Province affiliate have been limited to
Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Increased
attacks
In recent
months, militants have stepped up their attacks in Cabo Delgado, leading
experts to predict that the conflict will likely continue for a long time.
Murade Murargy, former
executive secretary of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP),
says he doesn’t “believe a solution to the conflict in Cabo Delgado
will be reached in the short term, but in the medium or long term.”
The Mozambican
diplomat told reporters this week that the insurgency in the northern
Mozambican province “is beyond the religious question, but it has an
economic aspect as well.”
Cabo Delgado
is a gas-rich region where major international oil and gas companies, including
ExxonMobil and Total, have several investment projects.
Transnational
insurgency
Observers say
that some of the militants fighting in northern Mozambique are allegedly
Tanzanian nationals. Tanzania, which borders Cabo Delgado to the north,
recently deployed troops to the border area to prevent a spillover of the
unfolding violence in the Mozambican province.
Mozambican officials,
however, believe they need to tighten their borders to stop the flow of foreign
fighters into the country.
“Those
who attack us, burn our houses and destroy the infrastructure are based outside
the country,” said Bernardino Rafael, commander-in-chief of the
Mozambican Police, without naming any countries.
They
“enter through our borders, which we have to close so that the terrorists
do not enter and those who enter do not leave,” Rafael said during a
recent speech in the capital, Maputo.
Murargy also asserted that militants have been
penetrating Cabo Delgado by sea and across the border with Tanzania.
South Africa
is reportedly preparing to deploy troops to Mozambique to help combat the
insurgency in Cabo Delgado, the online newspaper Carta de Mocambique
reported Thursday. South African and Mozambican officials, however, have not
made official comments on the matter.
In May,
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi called on regional
governments to support his country in driving out the jihadists.
Churches burned,
people beheaded in Mozambique’s escalating extremist violence
July 23, 2020
Courtney Mares
Catholic News Agency
ROME -- A Catholic bishop has deplored the world’s indifference to
escalating extremist violence in northern Mozambique, where multiple churches
have been burnt, people beheaded, young girls kidnapped, and hundreds of
thousands of people displaced by the violence.
Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa
of Mozambique’s Pemba diocese has been an outspoken advocate for the
needs of the more than 200,000 people who have been displaced by the violent
insurgency.
In June there were reports that insurgents had
beheaded 15 people in a week. Yet the bishop said that the crisis in Mozambique
has largely been met with “indifference” from the rest of the
world.
“The world has no idea yet what is
happening because of indifference,” Bishop Lisboa
said in an interview with Portuguese media June 21.
“We do not yet have the solidarity that
there should be," he told LUSA news agency.
During Holy Week this year insurgents
perpetrated attacks on seven towns and villages in Cabo Delgado province,
burning down a church on Good Friday, and killing 52 young people who refused
to join the terrorist group, the bishop told Aid to the Church in Need.
The bishop noted in April that extremists had
already burned five or six local chapels, as well as some mosques. He said that
the historic Sacred Heart of Jesus mission in Nangolo
was also attacked this year.
“They attacked the church and burnt the
benches and a statue of Our Lady, made of ebony. They also destroyed an image
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom the parish is dedicated. Fortunately,
they were unable to burn the building itself, only the benches,” Lisboa said.
The bishop said at the time that the increased
attacks, frequently targeting the Church, were “an injustice that is
crying out to heaven.”
Paulo Rangel, a Portuguese Member of the
European Parliament who has been advocating for European support of the region,
said July 23: “The international community is nowhere to be seen in
regard to the problem.”
“The people were already living in
extreme poverty, facing grave difficulties,” Rangel told Aid to the
Church in Need. “The problem is that at the present moment these people
are facing the threat of death, of losing their homes, of becoming
uprooted.”
More than 1,000 people have been killed in
attacks in northern Mozambique since 2017, according to the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Some of these attacks have been claimed by
the Islamic State, while others have been carried out by the homegrown Ahlu Sunna Wal extremist militant group, which has been
kidnapping men and women.
“At present we know that there are young
girls who have been abducted and enslaved, forced into sexual slavery by some
of these guerrillas, these insurgents, these terrorists,” Rangel said.
“We know that the recruitment of boys and
adolescents, some of them very young, aged 14, 15, 16, is also happening. It is
obvious that these young boys are under coercion. If they refuse to join the
group, they could be killed,” he added.
Rangel, the parliamentary deputy and vice
president of the Christian Democrat Party, had high praise for the Bishop of
Pemba for his efforts to raise awareness and appeal for the needs of the Cabo
Delgado region, calling Lisboa a “great apostle
of this cause.”
“We try to be the voice of the voiceless
by telling the world what is happening in Cabo Delgado,” Lisboa told Vatican News on July 8.
“The Church has been working with families
in the villages to support the people who are suffering the attacks, especially
those who have lost everything,” he said.
Pope Francis addressed the suffering in the
Cabo Delgado region in his Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi message, asking for prayer for “people who are
going through serious humanitarian crises, such as in the Cabo Delgado region,
in northern Mozambique.”
During his visit to Mozambique last September
Pope Francis urged Church leaders in the country to seek solutions through
dialogue, rather than conflict.
“The Church in Mozambique is invited to
be the Church of the Visitation,” Pope Francis said in the capital,
Maputo, Sept. 5.
The Church in Mozambique, he continued,
“cannot be part of the problem of rivalry, disrespect and division that
pits some against others, but instead a door to solutions, a space where
respect, interchange and dialogue are possible.”
Islamist group
kills 52 in 'cruel and diabolical' Mozambique massacre
Police say villagers
were killed, most beheaded or shot, after some refused to join extremists
The Guardian
April 22, 2020
An Islamist
extremist group in northern Mozambique has killed dozens of villagers
in its most bloody attack.
More than 50
people were massacred in an attack in Xitaxi in Muidumbe district after locals refused to be recruited to
its ranks, according to police cited by local media. Most were either shot dead
or beheaded.
The criminals
tried to recruit young people to join their ranks, but there was resistance.
This provoked the anger of the criminals, who indiscriminately killed cruelly
and diabolically 52 young people, police spokesman Orlando Mudumane
told the state-owned broadcasting service.
The attack
occurred more than two weeks ago but details have only emerged now.
Militants have
stepped up attacks in recent weeks as part of a campaign to establish an
Islamist caliphate in the gas-rich region, seizing government buildings, blocking
roads and briefly hoisting a black-and-white flag carrying religious symbols
over towns and villages across Cabo Delgado province. The flag is also used by
Isis and other Islamic extremists.
In March, the
insurgents briefly occupied the centre of Mocímboa da Praia, a district headquarters, burning
government facilities, including a barracks, and brandishing banners of
affiliation to the so-called Islamic State.
A day later a
second town was raided and the district police headquarters badly damaged.
Those attackers too carried an Islamic State flag. Twenty to 30 members of Mozambique’s security forces were killed in both attacks,
observers said.
Local security
forces suffer from poor training, minimal equipment and low morale. Attempts to
reinforce with expensive foreign mercenaries do not appear to have been
effective.
At least 150 Russians linked to the
Wagner Group, a company that has supplied mercenaries to fight in
several African countries, were deployed last year but were forced to withdraw
after suffering casualties.
The insurgency
in the remote north began to grow about two years ago, exploiting widespread
anger at the failure of central government to fairly distribute earnings from
exploitation of the region’s rich natural resources. Discontent was
exacerbated by endemic corruption and a brutal, indiscriminate military
response to the violence.
The insurgents
have so far mainly targeted isolated villages, killing more than 900 people,
according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled).
More than 200,000
people have fled the area hit worst by the violence, according to a local
Catholic archbishop, Dom Luiz Fernando.
Some have
sought refuge among friends and relatives in the port city of Pemba, the
capital of Cabo Delgado.
An organisation calling itself Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), affiliated with
Isis, has claimed some of the attacks in the region since last year.
The insurgents
are known locally as al-Shabaab (the youth), although they have no known links
to the extremist group of that name operating in Somalia.
The massacre
happened on the same day, 7 April, that local sources in Muidumbe
told AFP that militants went on a rampage, burning bridge construction
equipment and ransacking schools, hospitals and a bank. Before the raid, the
attackers used loudhailers to warn villagers not to run away but stay inside
the house, the source said.
In the same
district, the militants recorded a video of themselves addressing locals in the
region’s local vernacular of Kimwani and
Swahili.
Experts say
there is no quick fix to the problems underlying the insurgency.
Islamic
terrorism spreading in majority-Christian Mozambique; 700 dead, 100,000
displaced
By Samuel Smith, Christian Post Reporter
Over 100,000
people have been displaced and at least 700 have died in the majority-Christian
country of Mozambique since 2017, as the spread of radical Islamic extremism in
Africa is starting to plague the continent’s southeast region.
This month,
the U.N.'s High Commission for Refugees said it
is boosting its response in Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado
province, an oil-rich coastal region on the Indian Ocean.
Although
southeast Africa was once considered relatively peaceful compared to its
counterparts in the north, there’s concern that the region is becoming a
foothold for militants that appear to be aligned with the Islamic State.
The Institute
for Security Studies, an Africa-based think tank, published a reportlast
month stating that as many as 350 terror incidents have occurred in Mozambique
since the local jihadi group Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jammah simultaneously attacked police and military bases in
October 2017.
However, the
UNHCR warns that the most recent weeks have proved to be the most volatile
period as attacks are now spreading across most of Cabo Delgado’s 16
districts.
Cabo Delgado
is one of the least developed regions in the country. According to UNHCR
spokesperson Andrej Mahecic, hundreds of villages
have been burned and abandoned because of the indiscriminate campaign of
terror.
Armed groups have
been randomly targeting local villages and terrorizing the local population, Mahecic said at
a press briefing earlier this month in Geneva, Switzerland. Those fleeing
speak of killings, maiming, and torture, burnt homes, destroyed crops and
shops.
Mahecic explained that there have also been reports
of beheadings, kidnappings, and disappearances of women and children. Mahecic said the attackers, at times, warn locals when and
where they will attack, causing a mad rush of residents to flee those
areas.
As attacks are
spreading southward across the province, the U.N. notes that many in the
provincial capital of Pemba are starting to flee.
Bishop Luiz
Fernando Lisboa of the Diocese of Pemba told the
Catholic Charity Aid to the Church
in Need that one attack in the region targeted an agricultural
teacher training school in Bilibiza with over 500
students.
The school was
burned down, then [the attackers] smashed up other shops and businesses nearby,
the bishop said. It is a sad fact that the military and security forces are
unable to contain these attacks without international support. If the
government had done something to improve conditions, then perhaps this problem
would have been resolved, but instead many people are dying.
Lisboa warned that as villages are being vacated
entirely, no one is left to plant crops.
That means
that there will be hunger, and we will have thousands of internally displaced
people, he warned.
According to
ISS consultant Peter Fabricius, the insurgency
morphed into a terror campaign directed mainly at unarmed civilians after it
began with attacks on the military bases.
Fabricius reported in January that the death toll when
including security personal, insurgents and civilians stands at over 600 since
2017. However, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders told AFP that
at least 700 have been killed.
Fabricius stressed, however, that the government in
Maputo “continues to present these atrocities as mere criminality and that
member states of the Southern African Development Community are “going along
with that complacent view.
Additionally,
internal sources told AFP that security forces in Mozambique are despondent and
do not have the capacity to intercept the militants
communications. AFP quoted sources as saying that security units opt not to
respond to attacks on villages to avoid casualties in our ranks.
No Mozambique
insurgency has yet made it onto the agenda of SADC’s Organ on Politics, Defence and Security which is mandated to address such
regional threats, Fabricius stressed. This despite
evidence of spillovers into neighboring Tanzania and links with other jihadists
up the east coast.
As the
extremism spreads, Fabricius notes that a big problem
is that little is known about the perpetrators because ASWJ has not publicly
claimed any attacks.
ASWJ is known
locally as Al-Shabaab but is not believed to have any connection with the
deadly Somalia-based terror group with the same name, according to AFP.
While ASWJ has
not taken public credit for the attacks, the Islamic State terror network
has claimed the
responsibility of over two dozen attacks, according to
ISS.
Last June, the
Islamic State took credit for an attack on the Mozambique military by saying
that the militants were soldiers of the caliphate. As reported by The Guardian at
the time, the Islamic State claimed that Africa is a central component to its
effort to create a global network of extremists.
This raises
questions about how IS and ASWJ are related, Fabricius
writes. Is ASWJ the local affiliate of IS? Is IS simply claiming credit to boost its public stature,
especially since the loss of face caused by the fall of its caliphate in Syria
and Iraq?
The UNHCR says
it is expanding its presence in Mozambique in response to a request from the
Mozambican government.
Rooted in the
soil of Cabo Delgado, conditions common to such insurgencies seem to have given
it birth and continue to give it life, Fabricius
wrote.
These include
grinding poverty and a sense of marginalization and inequality, both between
the citizens of the province and the elite down south in Maputo and elsewhere
in the country, and among certain ethnic groups and Muslim factions in Cabo
Delgado.
Militants
throughout Africa have claimed ties to the Islamic State. Burkina Faso,
Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali have also seen a rise in terror attacks.
In Burkina
Faso, over 600,000 have been displaced since an escalation of terror attacks
began in 2016. In 2019 alone, displacement in
Burkina Faso rose 1,200 percent, according to the U.N.
At least 12
killed, 14 wounded in Mozambique jihadist attacks
2018-09-21
News 24
Twelve villagers were killed and 14 injured in an attack by suspected jihadists
on a village in a gas-rich region of northern Mozambique, a local source told
AFP on Friday.
Since October, the southeast African country's golden vision to exploit its gas
reserves has been thrown into doubt by an explosion of bloodthirsty assaults in
the region where the industry plans to base its hub.
"Ten people killed were shot by firearms and two burnt (to death) after 55
houses were charred. A person was beheaded after being shot dead" in the
northern village of Paqueue late Thursday, said the
source.
A health official in the Cabo Delgado region, who declined to be named, said
that an ambulance was dispatched to Paqueue to "rescue
the 14 wounded".
In a separate incident, a military convoy came under attack near the Tanzanian
border north of Paqueue, killing a senior army
officer, according to a police source.
"The attack occurred at night when defence and
security forces routinely patrol. The attackers wore military uniforms and had
large-calibre firearms," said the source who
declined to be named.