Cabo Ligado Weekly: 20-26 September
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-September 2021
Figures updated as of 24 September 2021.
Total number of organized political violence events: 1,001
Total number of reported fatalities from organized political violence: 3,348
Total number of reported fatalities from civilian targeting: 1,534
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
After a period in which insurgents appeared to have largely scattered from their base areas in the Messalo River valley, the insurgency returned to organized attacks on civilians in villages last week. Across 19 and 20 September, insurgents attacked three villages in Quissanga district: Bilibiza, Nacuta, and Tapara. In all, insurgents killed 17 civilians across the three attacks, including seven in Tapara. Civilians living in the area fled, fearing further insurgents activity near Lake Bilibiza. Mozambican soldiers attempting to respond to the killings near Bilibiza arrested five men on 20 September under suspicion of being insurgents. The men said that they were in the area to fish in the lake.
Insurgents also resumed cross-border raids on 20 September. Late at night, roughly 15 insurgents arrived in Kagera, a sub-village of Mahurunga Village in Tanzania’s Mtwara Rural district just across the Rovuma River from northwestern Palma district. They attacked a shop, looting bulk food items and killing the shopkeeper. After leaving the shop, the attackers burned down a home and then forced a number of civilians -- 18 according to one source, 33 according to another -- to leave the village with them. Accounts of the event agree that some of the women were raped and then released. One account claimed that three men were beheaded for failing to recite the shahada. No children have yet returned.
Mozambican military forces, likely working with troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Standby Force Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), struck an insurgent camp in a rural area near Quiterajo, Macomia district on 22 September. Five insurgents were killed in the operation. After the fighting, government forces freed 87 civilians who had been captured by the insurgency, 60 of whom were women and 27 of whom were children. The freed civilians were sent to the police station in Macomia for debriefing.
On 23 September, insurgents in Quissanga district launched a series of attacks. Two buses that had been carrying Mozambican soldiers to Macomia district and were returning empty came under fire along the N380 near Namoja, in Quissanga district near the border with Meluco district. At least one person was killed, and two people were injured. Further south on the N380, near Quissanga’s border with Ancuabe district, insurgents attacked the towns of Lindi, Songueia, and Quissanga II. In Lindi, they killed a child and three adults and burned 57 homes and an unknown number of vehicles. Homes were burned in Songueia, but no casualties were reported. No damage report from the attack on Quissanga II is available. Locals reported suspicions that the bus attack and the destruction of Lindi had actually been conducted by a group of Mozambican police and local militia members. There is no evidence to substantiate that charge at this time, but the fact that it is a topic of discussion shows the level of distrust between Mozambican security forces and civilians.
On the same day, insurgents also reportedly struck Tapara, roughly 10 kilometers west of Bilibiza, and N’nawa, in northern Quissanga district near Cagembe. More homes were burned in those attacks, but no casualties were reported. In addition, insurgent gunmen ambushed a truck carrying goods and passengers in Iba, Meluco district, injuring two people.
On 24 September, insurgents burned homes in Litingina, Nangade district, about 10 kilometers south of the district capital. The next day, according to a press release from SAMIM, the mission’s forces were also in action in Nangade district. The statement reported that SAMIM troops attacked and destroyed an insurgent base near Chitama, in southeastern Nangade district. SAMIM claimed that 17 insurgents were killed in the attack. One Tanzanian soldier was also killed in the fighting, and two Tanzanian soldiers and one Basotho soldier were injured. The statement said that the insurgent commander at the Chitama base was a “Sheikh Dr. Njile North,” a name that has not been publicly listed before as an insurgent leader.
The same press release reported that SAMIM forces had skirmished with insurgents in northern Macomia district on 26 September, killing one insurgent and arresting another.
In addition to the raft of violence, new information about earlier incidents came out last week. Another three bodies were found decapitated near Namaluco, Quissanga district. The victims are believed to have been killed in the insurgent attack there on 16 September. In total, eight civilians were killed in that attack.
SAMIM also made another claim last week, regarding earlier operations in northern Macomia district. According to the press release, SAMIM forces seized an insurgent training camp in the area known as the “Sheikh Ibrahim base” on 14 September. The offensive reportedly freed three elderly women who had been held at the camp and resulted in SAMIM troops recovering weapons and other supplies.
For their part, Rwandan forces in Cabo Delgado held a showcase of weapons recovered in their operations between Palma and Mocimboa da Praia for Rwandan journalists. They also made an 18-year-old insurgent they had captured available for press questions. The prisoner said that he had been in combat and had been “manipulated” into joining the insurgency. In a separate statement to the press, a Rwandan special operations forces officer complained that his troops were having trouble locating insurgent leaders who had been based in southern Mocimboa da Praia district. Part of the challenge, he intimated, is that while Rwandan forces are responsible for operations north of the Messalo River in Mocimboa da Praia district, operations south of the river in Macomia district are SAMIM’s responsibility. It appears that coordination between the two intervenors is still weak. In another press statement, the Rwandan military said that four Rwandan soldiers had been killed and 14 others “seriously wounded” in Cabo Delgado since the beginning of Rwandan combat operations in the province in July. No further details were offered about the timing or circumstances of the deaths.
A disturbing report about local militias was published last week in the Mozambican news outlet Ikweli. It details deadly vigilante actions by local militias, including the double murder of suspected insurgents in Chai, Macomia district in July. The young men -- one of whom was the nephew of an opposition politician in Macomia -- told militia members that they had recently escaped insurgent custody after being kidnapped for four months. Rather than turning them over to the police or offering any other form of due process, the militia members videotaped themselves executing their prisoners. Police, who have seen the video of the killings, deny ordering the militia members to commit the executions, but have also declined to take any action against the militia.
This report illustrates both the challenges faced by young men trying to live in the conflict zone and the risks posed by the state arming local militias. The victims, who do seem to have been nothing more than fishermen in the wrong place at the wrong time, found themselves targeted by both the insurgents and their ostensible defenders in the local militia. As military-aged men in a conflict zone, they could offer no reasoned defense to protect themselves under questioning. For the state, supporting local militias has increased the pro-government coalition’s capacity for violence, but it has also made the militias difficult to control. Even if police wanted to arrest the perpetrators of the murders, it is not clear that the militia would be willing to peacefully turn the killers over, as their actions took place in the context of the government’s own counterinsurgency effort. In any case, the government does not seem overly worried about the problem -- the report also notes that Mozambican police chief Bernardino Rafael recently delivered 12 tons of food supplies to local militias in Mueda district in recognition for their service. Rwandan troops also appear to prefer working with local militias to operating directly with Mozambican military forces and have been reported offering supplies to local militia partners.
Incident Focus: Nyusi and Kagame
Rwandan President Paul Kagame visited Cabo Delgado last week and participated in a series of public events, including many with his Mozambican counterpart and host, Filipe Nyusi. The most revealing of these events was the two presidents’ joint press conference in Pemba on 25 September. Both presidents were careful not to declare victory in the conflict, but they found themselves answering more questions about the past and the future than about any pressing military matters in the present.
Responding to a question about the future of Mozambican economic policy in Cabo Delgado, Nyusi appeared to reject the idea that Maputo’s neglect of the province was responsible for grievances that might have kickstarted the insurgency. He pointed out that Mocimboa da Praia, the town where the insurgency began, was relatively prosperous compared to the areas around it. Searching for the origins of the insurgency within Mozambique would, he argued, obscure the reality that “terrorism is an almost global formula” and that the global logics of terror created the insurgency. Nyusi’s answer makes political sense in the context of the joint press conference -- Kagame has consistently presented the Cabo Delgado insurgency as a shared threat between Mozambique, Rwanda, and the rest of East Africa. Yet it is an awkward juxtaposition against the expected rollout this week of a strategic plan for Nyusi’s Northern Integrated Development Agency (ADIN), which is meant to take the lead on reconstructing Cabo Delgado. Nyusi has said in the past that ADIN’s work will focus on providing youth jobs and economic empowerment, the same conditions that, he now says, were in place in the birthplace of the insurgency.
Both leaders declined to offer any timetable for the withdrawal of Rwandan forces from Mozambique, although Kagame seemed to step back from earlier assertions by Rwandan officials that the Rwandan military would take the lead on training their Mozambican counterparts. Instead, Kagame saluted the training programs set up by the European Union and SADC and suggested that the success of such programs would be part of the calculus for determining when Rwanda would withdraw.
Nyusi expressed optimism that work on the TotalEnergies liquified natural gas (LNG) project in Palma district would resume soon after the area was secured to the company’s satisfaction. Kagame, when asked if Rwandan troops would be guarding the LNG site, said that his forces were not in Mozambique “to secure projects” but also did not rule out any operations that the Mozambican government might ask of Rwanda in the future. The nearer term economic direction of the Mozambique-Rwanda relationship was hammered out the previous day, when Nyusi and Kagame signed a trade deal focused on the mineral and energy sectors.
Government Response
The international effort to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need in Cabo Delgado made an important step forward last week when the World Food Programme (WFP) was able to access Palma for the first time since March. A ship delivered 2,150 emergency food rations to Palma, and more shipments should arrive in the future. According to sources on the ground in Palma district, people are now living in villages throughout the eastern part of the district, as far north as Quionga and as far south as Olumbe. Mozambican and Rwandan troops are largely garrisoned with civilians rather than patrolling roads or bush areas. Sources on the ground also report that people living closer to the Tanzanian border appear to have generally better food access than those further south, perhaps indicating that some cross-border trade has been possible even in an extremely strained security environment.
The major impediment to continued WFP service to Palma and elsewhere in Cabo Delgado is the lack of international funding for humanitarian response. WFP is already issuing reduced food rations due to funding constraints. A new report from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) makes clear that funding is unlikely to increase anytime soon. UNHCR’s work in Cabo Delgado is only 66% funded, and it is having trouble closing the relatively minor $8.7 million gap in its budget. Without adequate funding for UNHCR, WFP, and other aid organizations, the coming lean season in Cabo Delgado could become extremely dangerous for many displaced civilians.
Some private investment is returning to the province, however. The three major mobile phone providers in Mozambique -- TMcel, Vodacom, and Movitel -- announced last week that they expect to be able to provide full service throughout Cabo Delgado again in the coming days. Insurgents had destroyed mobile phone infrastructure throughout the conflict zone, but company staff have been working to repair networks in areas no longer under insurgent control.
These and other points of progress, as well as pressure to finish planting before the coming rainy season, has left many displaced people eager to return to their home communities. According to a source on the ground, people from Mueda, Mocimboa da Praia, and Palma are gathering in Mueda town, waiting impatiently for the go-ahead to go home. It is unclear when and how the go-ahead will come.
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