Cabo Ligado Weekly: 10-23 May
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-May 2021
Figures updated as of 21 May 2021.
Total number of organized violence events: 879
Total number of reported fatalities from organized violence: 2,852
Total number of reported fatalities from civilian targeting: 1,409
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
In the last two weeks, the locus of armed conflict in Cabo Delgado has shifted south and westward from Palma district to Muidumbe district. On 13 May, sources reported fighting between insurgents and local militia members in and around Ntchinga, Muidumbe district. No further details of the clashes are available.
The next week, in the early morning hours of 21 May, Mozambican government troops occupied Diaca, Mocimboa da Praia district. By 22 May, there was fighting reported in the Diaca area. There has been no confirmation as to whether government forces still hold the town. The Diaca offensive is strategically important for two reasons. The first is that, according to local sources, Diaca has been in insurgent hands for months and recently hosted a training camp for the group. Second, Diaca is the first substantial town in Mocimboa da Praia district on the road from Mueda to Mocimboa da Praia town. If the government is to retake Mocimboa da Praia town by land, it will have to take and hold Diaca and Awasse, 10 kilometers to the east, first.
The same day as the government’s initial move into Diaca, according to a speech by Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi, insurgents attacked Olumbe, in southern Palma district but were repelled by government forces. Nyusi claimed that the attack was aimed at five Mozambicans who had deserted from the insurgency, and that the five were killed before the attackers were driven back. Nyusi’s speech was at a Frelimo Central Committee meeting, where he was attempting to settle doubts about the direction of his government’s counterinsurgency effort (see Government Response section below for more on his speech). He used the incident to argue that division is growing within the insurgent ranks. No independent sources have confirmed Nyusi’s account.
On 22 May, government forces were once again in action. Ground troops, including Mueda-based militia members, supported by SA-341 Gazelle and Mi-8 helicopters -- the Gazelles piloted by Mozambicans recently trained by Paramount Group -- reoccupied Namacande, the district capital of Muidumbe. The Gazelles made nine flights over Namacande over the course of the day, providing cover and transporting soldiers to the town. It was their first confirmed use in combat. Their entry into the conflict provides government forces a substantial increase in aerial capability following the end of the Dyck Advisory Group’s (DAG) contract. Clashes in the town were brief, and insurgents withdrew quickly. Namacande had been under insurgent control since December 2020, when government forces withdrew from the town after retaking it. It is unclear if government forces have enough spare strength to hold it for an extended period going forward.
The same day, a government special operations unit surprised insurgents in Nangunde and Ntchinga, both in Muidumbe district. The unit captured an unknown number of insurgents, all of whom turned out to be local youths. The troops in the unit had received foreign training, though it is unclear if the unit is drawn from the group of Mozambican troops trained by DAG, by Burnham Global, or from those who have graduated from the recent US training program.
Also on 22 May, local militia members in Chacamba, Nangade district captured five insurgents. The insurgents said that they were fleeing government operations near Pundanhar, in western Palma district. They claimed to have escaped with a sixth insurgent, who was later stabbed to death by a member of the government security forces, prompting the remaining five to run further away. The five were later murdered by residents of Chacamba in a vigilante action against one of the insurgents who was known to them.
On 23 May, at Ntoni -- a small village near Pangane, in coastal Macomia district -- insurgents surprised six fishermen who were working in the area. The insurgents demanded the group’s catch and their money, but otherwise did not hurt them. The fishermen then fled to Pangane.
A new report based on interviews with people who were kidnapped by insurgents during the 24 March Palma attack and were subsequently released suggests that insurgents were paid for the attack. Witnesses reported seeing payment sessions in which fighters who participated in the Palma attack and came through it unscathed received just under $2,000, paid in meticais, while those who were wounded in the battle received twice as much. The witnesses also confirmed earlier reports of child soldiers among the insurgents, saying that boys as young as 11 were carrying arms for the group.
Incident Focus: How IDPs Stay Informed
The United Nations International Organization for Migration released a report on community engagement among displaced civilians in Metuge district on 11 May. The research, based on a survey of six resettlement centers, offers insight into one of the most important deprivations displaced people face in Cabo Delgado: an inability to get reliable information about what is going on in the province.
The survey laid out some of the fundamental challenges displaced people face in getting information, whether it be news about their family members, updates on the course of the conflict, or instructions on how to access aid and other forms of government support. Only 30% of respondents can read and write, meaning that the vast majority can only access information by word of mouth. This can be difficult, both for linguistic and resource reasons. Linguistically, relatively few people speak Portuguese, which is both the language the government works in and the language most spoken by aid workers. No resettlement site had more than 58% Portuguese speakers. Radios or phones are necessary to receive first-hand audio information, and they are both in short supply. Only 59% of respondents have access to a radio, and only 50% have access to a phone.
Displaced civilians also face challenges in sorting out which information sources to believe. Of the 17 potential information sources listed in the study, only two -- aid workers and radio -- were rated as trustworthy by the majority of both men and women. With information at such a premium in the province, displaced people are constantly having to confront rumor and misinformation.
The data also reveal an alarming gender imbalance among the displaced population. Both linguistic and resource deficits are far worse for women than for men. Only 7% of women surveyed are literate, and a similar number speak Portuguese. By comparison, nearly 48% of men surveyed can read and write. Women also had drastically less access to audio information sources. Of those who said they had access to a radio, only 19% were women. The situation with mobile phones is not much better -- only 23% of phone users are women.
The gender disparity also expresses itself in the ways people rate the trustworthiness of news sources. 74% of men reported trusting news that came from community leaders, but only 38% of women agreed. Similarly, 46% of men trusted information heard at community events, but only 10% of women agreed. Only aid workers, radio, and phone calls (presumably with trusted sources) received majority approval among women respondents.
The trust disparity is a particular problem because it leaves women at a huge disadvantage in reporting problems and organizing activities in the resettlement sites. 57% of men said they could speak with aid workers about organizing activities at the sites, while only 17% of women agreed. Worse, only 40% of men said they were able to report abuses to aid workers, and only 5% of women said they were able to do the same. At a time when another report from the aid community says that only 3,820 of the 89,688 displaced people currently in resettlement sites have access to a complaint mechanism that can act on charges of sexual exploitation, the gendered communication disparity poses a major risk to displaced women.
Government Response
Despite indications this week that the government’s counterinsurgency effort is making progress in Muidumbe and Mocimboa da Praia districts, there are also less encouraging signs. The newspaper Savana reported last week that insurgents are making substantial sums by ransoming hostages, many of them foreigners, with the military in some cases being the ones to carry out the transaction. Ransoms range from about $3,000 to nearly $35,000, and are arranged through a combination of satellite phone and mobile phone contact. According to the report, two Brazilian nuns who were freed from insurgent captivity last year were ransomed for nearly $25,000, which was paid by driving the cash from Mueda to Awasse. More recently, the same method sent over $33,000 to the insurgents in exchange for two Indians who had been taken during the Palma attack of 24 March, according to the same report. At least two Zimbabweans and one Somali reportedly remain in insurgent custody following the Palma attack.
Local militias are said to be unhappy with the news that government forces are involved in paying ransoms, a situation that is no doubt worsened by the government’s struggles to pay veteran pensions on time in Nangade district. As in most other districts, military veterans make up the bulk of the local militia in Nangade, and they have scored a number of important victories in the district. Yet those who have their pensions paid in cash had not received their money since January, due to the government’s reticence to move cash through areas threatened by insurgents. On 15 May, government officials sent word that the veterans could come to Mueda to receive their back pensions, and then risk the trip back to Nangade themselves. Those who did, scraping together the $16 round trip fare, arrived in Mueda and found that they would only be paid their February pension. Their March, April, and May payments have yet to go through.
Even the Mozambican police are complaining about a lack of resources for their deployed forces. At a celebration of the 46th anniversary of the police force’s founding, the provincial police commander for Cabo Delgado told Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo that his officers lacked communications equipment, transportation, and adequate pay to fight the insurgency. Tauabo responded harshly, saying that the police force’s inability to contain the insurgency is delaying economic development and indirectly causing its own budget problems. This is not the first time police have complained about the lack of resources at their disposal, but the provincial commander is the highest ranking police officer to complain publicly. His outburst comes after President Nyusi wrested control of the overall counterinsurgency effort from the police and put it in the hands of the military, putting the police at a disadvantage in the bureaucratic scramble for resources.
Things are not better for displaced civilians, however. For those within Mozambique, the World Health Organization asked for an extra $3.5 million from donors to cover increased demand for medical care in Cabo Delgado as a result of further displacement above and beyond what aid agencies expected for 2021. In total, the organization says that 1.2 million people are in urgent need of health assistance in Cabo Delgado. The World Food Program, for its part, put the number of people facing food insecurity in northern Mozambique at 950,000.
There are even fewer resources available for Mozambicans who have fled to Tanzania to escape the violence. The United National High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) accused the Tanzanian government of forcibly repatriating thousands of Mozambican refugees, including over 1,500 in May alone. According to Mozambique’s National Immigration Service, there were 1,620 deportations just between 8 and 23 May. The UNHCR statement also called the plight of Mozambicans living at the Negomano border post in Mueda district, where Tanzanian authorities deposit Mozambican refugees, “dire.” Little humanitarian aid is reaching the post, so those stuck there without the resources to travel south are extremely vulnerable. The situation is especially dire for families of mixed nationality who are often split, with Mozambicans refouled across the border to Mozambique while Tanzanians remain in Tanzania.
Some Mozambicans, lacking the money for transportation from Negomano to Mueda, are taking on agricultural work illegally in Tanzania in order to raise funds. Their precarious legal position only increases their vulnerability. The district administrator of Mueda told MediaFax that the people who remain at Negomano are free to leave at any time, and that the Mozambican government will provide them transportation south. However, this claim is not borne out by the people in Negomano still working to eke out the roughly $16.50 necessary for a ticket to Mueda.
The Mozambican government has undertaken at least one new program directed at the displaced population. According to the Cabo Delgado provincial director for youth and labor, 33 teams will participate in an effort to provide free birth registration for displaced people in the province. The service is important because many who were forced to leave their homes on short notice left their identification documents behind, making it difficult for them to access state services. The free registration will give them replacement documents, while giving the government more complete data on who is living where. In an earlier registration campaign, 46,400 displaced people received new documents.
One of the ways improved documentation for displaced people could be useful is in keeping track of aid distribution. According to Rural Environment Observatory researcher João Mosca, one of the sources of perceived corruption in aid distribution is that some people are registered to receive aid in multiple locations. A more complete (and digitized) record system could help eliminate that double counting and improve the fairness of aid distribution.
An area where the registration program will not help, however, is in disputes between displaced people and local residents over land in Montepuez district. Displaced people there have complained that locals have forced them to pay to stay on land that is part of their resettlement center, and that they have been charged money in exchange for “passwords” that they are told are necessary to access food aid. As more people arrive in the district, these sorts of tensions are likely to worsen in the absence of government intervention.
In Maputo, criticism of the government’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in the north is mounting. Mozambique’s Catholic bishops, writing under the banner of the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace, said on 12 May that the government’s record in Cabo Delgado suggests that its primary goal “is to defend profits and well-being for a small handful of people already wealthy.” Those strong words seem to answer speculation following the transfer of Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa out of the country that the Church would temper its criticisms of the Mozambican government.
Criticism from secular aid agencies has also increased recently. Following calls from UN agencies to reduce government red tape around aid delivery, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a statement echoing that sentiment and underlining the inadequacy of the current humanitarian response in Cabo Delgado. The MSF statement also criticizes donor countries that have rushed to support Mozambique’s counterterrorism operations but have lagged behind in funding humanitarian operations, which remain alarmingly under-resourced. As counterterrorism operations expand, the statement argues, they risk making humanitarian response much more difficult to accomplish.
That argument has largely fallen on deaf ears, however, at least for now. All the movement on the international front in the last two weeks has centered on military support and intervention. On 18 May, Saudi Arabia announced its intention to “support the capabilities of the Defense and Security Forces in Mozambique to combat extremist groups” in partnership with the Southern African Development Community (SADC). For its part, SADC is finally set to discuss the regional body’s proposal for a military intervention in Cabo Delgado during an Extraordinary Double Troika meeting in Maputo scheduled for 26-27 May. President Nyusi told the Frelimo Central Committee that he called the meeting in an attempt to gather support for Mozambique’s counterinsurgency effort, but reiterated that any support package would have to pass muster from his government.
One wrinkle in the SADC process that is sure to come up at the Extraordinary Troika meeting is the emerging role of Rwanda in Mozambique’s plans. President Nyusi made a surprise trip to Kigali last month to discuss the situation in Cabo Delgado with Rwandan president Paul Kagame. Since then, top Rwandan security officials have traveled to both Mozambique and Tanzania to learn more about the conflict. Rwandan police chief Dan Munzuya met with his Tanzanian counterpart during a 9-13 May trip to Tanzania, during which the two agreed that both Tanzanians and Rwandans are moving into Cabo Delgado and pledged to cooperate on the issue. Speculation is now rising, driven in part by anti-Kagame factions of the Rwandan diaspora, that there will be a Rwandan military contingent involved in any SADC military intervention in Cabo Delgado.
Such speculation derives in part from France’s evolving role in coordinating international action on the conflict. Nyusi and Kagame were both in Paris last week for a summit on African economies, and both met with French president Emmanuel Macron. According to Nyusi, Macron showed “complete willingness” to provide any necessary assistance to Mozambican security forces in Cabo Delgado, adding that the French leader also respects Mozambique’s sovereignty. Macron travels to Rwanda and South Africa this week and is expected to discuss the Cabo Delgado situation with stakeholders in both countries.
10 May 2021: Pemba
12 May 2021: Macomia
13 May 2021: Diaca
13 May 2021: Muambula
15 May 2021: Quirimba Islands
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