Mozambique forces kill 37 insurgents in Cabo Delgado
Tuesday December 29 2020
Soldiers from the Mozambican army patrol the streets in Mocimboa da Praia, north of the country, on March 7, 2018. PHOTO | AFP
Mozambique security and defence forces last week killed 37 terrorists and retrieved 21 firearms in Cabo Delgado province, north of the country.
They also destroyed three vehicles, 10 motorcycles and 17 vessels used by the insurgents, authorities added.
“If they try to enter here again, they find a prompt response, as the one you have been giving them,” the country’s police general commander, Bernardino Rafael, told security and defence seventh battalion personnel that has been fighting the insurgents.
On Thursday, defence and security forces repulsed militants who attempted to invade Mute, a town close to Cabo Delgado’s natural gas megaproject.
An insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province that borders Tanzania has seen atrocities, including beheading of civilians, reported there.
The terrorist attacks began in October 2017 on police stations in Mocimboa da Praia District, then spread to other districts in the northern part of Cabo Delgado, notably in Macomia, Palma and Nangade. The violence also affected the electoral process, with the government imposing restrictions to campaigns in northern Cabo Delgado.
On December 16, President Filipe Nyusi said a total of 570,000 people have fled violence in the north of the country.
Now a group calling itself al-Shabaab, with no known links to the Somali militant group by the same name, has pronounced its intention to create a caliphate and pledged allegiance to the ISIS terror group. So far, an estimated 2,000 people have been killed and another 400,000 displaced.
A fortnight ago, the UN and its partners appealed for $254 million for emergency humanitarian aid in Mozambique, where more than one million people are threatened by violence in Cabo Delgado province and neighbouring areas.