Cabo Ligado Weekly: 20-26 March 2023

Mar 28

By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-March 2023 ¹

Figures updated as of 24 March 2023. Political violence includes Battles, Explosions/Remote violence, and Violence against civilians event types. Violence targeting civilians includes Explosions/Remote violence and Violence against civilians event types where civilians are targeted. Fatalities for the two categories thus overlap for certain events. ACLED is a living dataset and figures are subject to change as new information becomes available.

Total number of political violence events: 1,622
Total number of reported fatalities from political violence: 4,660
Total number of reported fatalities from political violence targeting civilians: 2,002

All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.

Situation Summary

Last week saw the second IED incident in just over two weeks in Muidumbe district. Insurgent movements, including an abduction, and peaceful incursions into villages, continued on the coast in Macomia district.

On 21 March, in the Paqueué area of Quiterajo, insurgents captured two fishermen, a father and son, while looking for food, but they were later released. On 24 March, insurgents appeared 30 kilometers to the south, peacefully visiting the villages of Mucojo, Rueia, and Ningaia, as per their recent strategy of developing positive relations with selected villages, mainly along the Cabo Delgado coast.

The only violent clashes of the week were reported around the villages of Namacule and Mandava in southern Muidumbe on 24 March. Gunfire was exchanged between Local Forces and insurgents, but there are no details of casualties. One source claimed four insurgents were captured with their weapons, but this has not yet been confirmed. An armored personnel carrier (APC) belonging to the Botswanan contingent of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique, thought to be responding to that incident, ran over an IED in the Mandava area, according to a source. Two soldiers were reportedly injured. The vehicle was able to make its way back to its base in Mueda. This follows a similar IED incident in the same area on 9 March, which also hit a Botswanan contingent APC.

Insurgents were sighted on 25 March in Nangade, moving from the Nkonga forest in the east of the district to the lowlands around Namatil, in neighboring Mueda district to the west, allegedly due to lack of food, according to one local source. The insurgents passed within 3 km of a Lesotho military position in the Alamba area near Nangade district headquarters, the source claimed. Security forces were alerted, and pursued them.

Last week, a source reported a band of Local Forces in Macomia explored an area north of Nkoe where insurgents were known to have operated bases until recently. Returning on 21 March, they claimed to have found several abandoned camps, with one containing at least 30 tents. Abandoned caves were also discovered with mattresses, clothes, and other goods. This account, if accurate, may confirm reports that insurgents have relocated under pressure from the security forces’ Operation Vulcão IV, which was declared to have been a success in February. Recent reports suggest insurgents have moved back to the Catupa forest area in eastern Macomia.

Following the attack on Mitope on 14 March, three bodies, presumed to be insurgents, were discovered outside the village on 22 March, Lusa reported. Islamic State issued a claim for the 14 March attack on 21 March, claiming that there had been just one fatality that day.

Weekly Focus: Humanitarian Challenges in a ‘Protracted Crisis’

In an online presentation last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) highlighted how two years after their arrival in Cabo Delgado, a complex set of challenges faces communities across the province. These range from the breakdown of treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes, and HIV and AIDS, to the challenge of reaching people who are being repeatedly displaced in the areas still most affected by conflict. Like this month’s report on conditions in the northeast from the Rural Environment Observatory (OMR), the event seemed to have been timed to influence the report on the humanitarian situation expected from Jean-Christophe Rufin, and commissioned by TotalEnergies. Rufin is a former vice president of MSF.

Conditions in Palma have improved significantly since MSF’s arrival two years ago, though the district hospital is the only functioning public health facility in the district, according to MSF. Mobile clinics reach some rural areas, such as Quionga on the road to Tanzania, and Olumbe in the south of the district, and have recently been extended to Pundanhar in the west. According to sources in Palma, TotalEnergies is keen to support the return of displaced people from Palma town to Pundanhar. A Rwandan military outpost there provides the requisite security.

In Mocímboa da Praia, needs are more acute. According to MSF, the district population is now over 100,000 people, and numbers are increasing all the time. The International Organization for Migration recorded almost 3,000 returning to the district between 8 and 23 March. According to the OMR’s report on the northeast, the pre-conflict population in 2017 was 123,975. Despite this rapidly growing population, the town still has no hospital, and relies on mobile clinics. Mueda hospital is currently the only secondary health facility serving Mocímboa da Praia, Mueda, and Nangade districts, according to MSF.

MSF reminds us, as OMR pointed out last August in a previous report, that most aid remains concentrated in the south and does not reach Mocímboa da Praia, let alone Macomia, Meluco, and Muidumbe districts which are still suffering attacks. Ongoing ambushes on the main roads, such as one that killed an MSF worker in February, complicate logistics for the health sector as much as for everyone else in the north.

These concerns are shared at community level. On Friday 24 March, the district administrator for Mocímboa da Praia held a public meeting in the town. Speaking in Portuguese with a Kimuani interpreter, he told a small crowd that President Filipe Nyusi had promised funding to restore the hospital. How soon that might be is not clear. In a December 2022 needs assessment, “refurbishment, re-stocking, and re-staffing of health facilities” was listed as a matter for the “recovery” phase.

Getting to the recovery phase will depend on the security risk. The district administrator also made an amnesty offer at the meeting, urging forgiveness, and invoking the fasting month of Ramadan. “The al-Shabaab are our children,” he said, “which is why we must forgive them. Ramadan is for forgiveness.” The previous week, at a public meeting called by police, rehabilitation and amnesty was on offer. Without a diminution of the security threat, the health pressures outlined by MSF will persist.

Weekly Round-Up

US publishes 10-year strategy for peace and stability in Mozambique

The United States Department of State on Friday published a summary of its new 10-year Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS) in Mozambique, to be rolled out first in northern Mozambique, and in time, across the country.

The SPCPS is an instrument of the 2019 Global Fragility Act, which seeks to underpin the United States’ long-term security goals. Mozambique has been chosen along with Haiti, Libya, Papua New Guinea, and Coastal West Africa to pioneer the approach. The latter is a grouping of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo.

Summary strategy documents for all five were published last week. Mozambique's summary focuses on encouraging open political participation and governance, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, accountable security and justice sectors, and resilient social cohesion, to "foster enduring stability" in the country.

The summary of the strategy for Mozambique says it "aligns US efforts" with Mozambique's existing Plan for Recovery and Reconstruction in Cabo Delgado and Program for Resilience and Integrated Development for Northern Mozambique.

Among other things, the US also promises to "expand assistance to local leaders and communities engaged in peacebuilding efforts," and will also "increase defense and security sector engagement, capitalizing on new cooperation opportunities."

The full draft strategy has yet to be published but is expected in the coming days.

Call for Tanzanian prisoners in Mozambique to be released

Tanzanian opposition party ACT Wazalendo called for the release of 26 Tanzanians held in remand in Mozambique since the outbreak of the conflict in October 2017. In a statement released on 21 March, ACT Wazalendo claimed there were 37 prisoners, of whom 11 have died in custody. Of those 37, 24 were fishermen with the correct permits, according to the party’s statement. Minister for Foreign Affairs Stergomena Tax has neither confirmed nor denied the case, but has wondered if ACT Wazalendo has brought the case to the attention of her ministry.

Police begin search for abandoned military material

Police in Cabo Delgado have launched an operation to find military material such as rockets, grenades, and ammunition that has been hidden or abandoned throughout the districts of Mocímboa da Praia, Palma, Muidumbe, Macomia, Nangade, and Quissanga, Notícias reported. Provincial police commander Vicente Chicote has called on the public to cooperate. Unexploded ordinance is a problem in the province. Last week, workers discovered a likely grenade near the airfield in Mocímboa da Praia, according to a local source.

International finance helps address water and food security as crops struggle

In the last two months, crops in Cabo Delgado’s Mueda district have suffered from excessive rain, followed by insufficient rain, according to District Administrator Aina Combo. The damaging effect this will have on the food supply will hopefully be mitigated by a 1.5 million US dollars cash grant from the Japanese government to the World Food Programme to address acute and moderate malnutrition in the province. Last week, Governor of Cabo Delgado Valige Tauabo also inaugurated a new water supply system that will produce an extra 800 cubic meters of water per day, which was financed with the help of the World Bank, United Nations Children's Fund, and United Nations Office for Project Services.

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