Cabo Ligado Weekly: 24-30 April 2023

May 3, 2023 Cabo Ligado

Total number of political violence events: 1,626
Total number of reported fatalities from political violence: 4,664
Total number of reported fatalities from political violence targeting civilians: 2,000

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

Situation Summary

Violence erupted in Cabo Delgado once again last week, with a series of clashes between insurgents and the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces (FADM) around the villages of Mandava and Mapate in Muidumbe district on the weekend of 29 and 30 April. At least five government soldiers died, while over a dozen may have been wounded, local sources estimate.

The sequence of events is unclear. Fighting began in the morning of 29 April, with security forces attempting to push back the insurgents with mortar fire, according to one source. Intense fighting ensued for several hours, and a helicopter was dispatched to bring reinforcements and evacuate casualties, who were brought to Pemba for treatment.

Another source spoke of the clashes being sparked by a well-organized attack on a FADM outpost in Mandava on 29 April. This tallied with a statement released by Islamic State on 3 May, which claimed that on that day, “soldiers of the caliphate attacked a position of the crusader Mozambican army, in the village of Mandava,” killing five and wounding 10 soldiers. Carta de Moçambique reported that a FADM vehicle transporting supplies and military personnel to the village of Muambula nearby was also ambushed in the Mandava area the following day, 30 April. A local source also spoke of fighting continuing over 29 and 30 April.

According to two other sources, the insurgents withdrew once troops from the Botswana contingent of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) arrived in armored vehicles from Mueda.

Local Forces may also have been involved in the fight, as one was wounded and taken for traditional healing in the nearby village of Miteda. Large quantities of weapons and ammunition were also likely to have been stolen. Insurgents in this area are said by one local source to be commanded by Bonomade Machude Omar, one of the leaders sanctioned by the United States and the European Union, and a known leader of the insurgency since its inception.

The attack followed a patrol conducted by the FADM and Local Forces around Mandava three days before, which found an insurgent camp near the Messalo river where fighters were building huts and planting corn. This patrol may have alerted the insurgents to the military presence in the area and prompted them to plan an ambush, one local source suggested.

On the coast, insurgents continue to eschew violence in pursuit of ‘hearts and minds.’ On 26 April, an insurgent group appeared in Ntoni village in Macomia district, and bought food and clothes. A week before, about 30 insurgents had been in nearby Pangane village, where they socialized with fishermen and bought food for Eid al-Fitr.

In the Nkonga forest of Nangade, returning civilians are uncovering stockpiles of weapons abandoned by insurgents. On 27 April, security forces found seven AKM-47 assault rifles, 33 magazines of ammunition, 16 60-millimeter mortar tubes, eight 60 mm shells, two rocket-propelled grenades, a machine gun, and other miscellaneous equipment. More than a week earlier, the Lesotho Defence Force discovered an insurgent arms cache during a patrol in Nangade. Insurgents came under increasing pressure from security forces following Operation Vulcão III in September last year. The last confirmed sighting was on 25 March, when a group of fighters was observed leaving Nkonga for the lowlands around Namatil.

The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) captured three suspected insurgent collaborators from the same family in Nazimoja, approximately 15 kilometers south of Mocímboa da Praia, on 28 April, according to a local source. One of them is accused of being the wife of an insurgent who ran a business with a capital of 600,000 meticais (9,361 US dollars) in Ntele, Mueda district, as a front to buy food and supplies for his fighters. The three family members were arrested while trying to flee into the bush, the source said.

Weekly Focus: Security Questions Beyond Palma and Mocímboa da Praia

In his newsletter this week, Joseph Hanlon pointed to the development of a “security and development enclave” in Palma and Mocímboa da Praia districts, where peace would be maintained by Rwandan forces. Beyond these two strategic districts, other armed actors, including insurgents, would remain active in the rest of the province, where reliance on the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), unevenly distributed Local Forces, and a stretched SAMIM contingent presents insurgents with opportunity.

Developments in the past week, and preceding weeks, illustrate the uneven security posture from state and affiliated forces across the province. Mocímboa da Praia district, and neighboring coastal areas of Macomia, have witnessed the sustained presence of insurgents, who are engaging with displaced people returning to their areas of origin. In Macomia district, this has been facilitated by the unwillingness of the FDS to engage with insurgents in that area. Most recently, Macomia District Administrator Tomás Badae sought returnees’ assistance in convincing insurgents to turn themselves in, rather than deploying the FDS against them. Badae’s reluctance might be due to a wish to minimize uncertainty, with the natural gas project still awaiting a final go-ahead, and municipal elections on the horizon. He may also have been concerned by the lack of any significant Local Forces presence now or over the course of the conflict.

By contrast, in Muidumbe district, Local Forces have had a prominent role in security operations. They accompanied returnees on their ill-fated return to Miangelewa in early April, producing a widely viewed clip in the process. And last week, of course, they were involved in the clashes around Mandava.

This recent pattern is reflected in ACLED data over the course of the conflict. Since October 2017, there has been a similar number of political violence events recorded involving Local Forces in Muidumbe (26) and Macomia (32). Those in Muidumbe have all been concentrated in the lowlands between the N380 and the Messalo river. In Macomia, however, just two events involving Local Forces have been recorded on the coastal strip of Macomia, where insurgents now have some freedom of movement.

The presence of international intervention forces too is both unevenly distributed, and not always timely. For both of last week’s events around Mandava, and the earlier attack on Miangelewa, they only appeared after the event, according to local sources. Operating out of Mueda, the southern lowlands of Muidumbe lie at the extremity of SAMIM’s area of operation. Security coverage across Macomia has often been unclear, with occasional forays by Rwandan forces, and the completion of a base for the SAMIM South African contingent last year.

Last week’s incident in Mandava illustrates that insurgents still present a credible threat to the FDS, one likely bolstered by their access to supplies and a base in Macomia towards the coast. Running through and between Macomia and Muidumbe is the N380. The insurgents’ continued ability to move across and along that axis, and the differing security apparatus they face, suggest that even in smaller numbers, they maintain the capacity to significantly disrupt the reconstruction of the province.

Weekly Round-Up

Drunken misconduct among FADM threatens trust in the government

Last Friday, Ancuabe district headquarters was stricken with panic when gunshots were heard within the town. It turned out to be drunken military officers, firing aimlessly into the air. This incident followed a report two days earlier, on 26 April, when two FADM soldiers were badly injured by a passing motorcycle when stumbling drunk down the road between Ntchinga and Namacande.

These are not the first cases of misbehavior and abuse committed by government security forces under the influence of alcohol. In early April, one source reported that officers of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) in Salaue, Ancuabe, harassed, beat, and abducted civilians while intoxicated. In June last year, soldiers were suspected of shooting at civilian vehicles in Quissanga as they were seen drinking near the scene of the attack. That month, Minister of the Interior Arsénia Massingue criticized the members of the UIR for often getting drunk and abandoning their positions.

Although shootings of civilians by security forces have also been reported in Mocímboa da Praia, the prevalence of criminality among government forces in places like Ancuabe may have its source in the fact that troops are deployed far from the supervision of command headquarters or forces such as the SAMIM and the RDF.

Deputy minister of industry inspects Cabo Delgado reconstruction

Ludovina Bernardo, the deputy minister of industry and commerce, led a delegation to Mocímboa da Praia and Mueda on 29 April to oversee the progress of the Cabo Delgado Reconstruction Plan. Bernardo called for the return of businesses to conflict-affected areas and urged economic activity to replace the need for government support. The US$301 million plan has been beset by delays since it was approved in October 2021, and on 11 April, Deputy Justice Minister Filimão Suaze told the Council of Ministers that only US$131m had been procured so far, mainly from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.

HRW condemns legalization of Local Forces

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticized the incorporation of Local Forces into the FADM, arguing that it is irresponsible to give a legal mandate to a paramilitary group that has been accused of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, extortion, mistreating detainees, and other abuses. Local Forces have been an essential part of the government’s counter-insurgency strategy since the start of the conflict in 2017, guarding villages and patrolling areas where the regular security forces do not have an established presence. The counter-argument to HRW’s criticism is that legalizing the militias could give the government more oversight of these groups and create the opportunity to provide human rights instruction to their fighters.

TotalEnergies blames contractors for delaying LNG restart

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné told investors last Thursday that disagreement with contractors over costs is the major obstacle preventing the restart of its liquified natural gas (LNG) project at Afungi, which was suspended in April 2021 following the insurgent attack on Palma the month before. Pouyanné argued contractors are demanding more money than is reasonable, and Total has already settled its outstanding financial obligations. The day before his statement, President Filipe Nyusi told the 2023 Mozambique Mining and Energy Conference in Maputo that conditions in Cabo Delgado are safe for the LNG project to restart at any time. Syrah Resources, which owns the Twigg graphite mine in Cabo Delgado’s Balama district, echoed this sentiment last week, stating that the “security environment in Cabo Delgado province has generally improved since 2022.”