Cabo Ligado Weekly: 3-9 October 2022
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-October 2022
Figures updated as of 7 October 2022. Organized political violence includes Battles, Explosions/Remote violence, and Violence against civilians event types. Organized 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.
Total number of organized political violence events: 1,461
Total number of reported fatalities from organized political violence: 4,322
Total number of reported fatalities from organized violence targeting civilians: 1,901
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
Insurgent activity remained at a relatively low ebb last week, with only four confirmed attacks, three in Macomia district, and one in Muidumbe district. In Macomia, two attacks took place on Saturday 8 October in the villages of Litandacua and Nguida. In Litandacua, just south of the Messalo river, insurgents shot and killed one person while burning and looting the village, before being forced to withdraw under fire from Local Forces. In Nguida, approximately 20 km northwest of Macomia district headquarters, heavy gunfire was heard in the village and at least 13 homes were burned. No deaths have been reported so far.
The next day, insurgents attacked Namituco in the Chicomo area of Macomia, about 10 km south of Nguida. Few details about the attack have emerged but it was reported that Local Forces lacked the munitions to resist and consequently insurgents have been allowed to roam freely around much of the district. This follows reports that Local Forces engaging insurgents at Homba, Mueda, on 23 September had to retreat after running out of ammunition, suggesting the militia may be struggling with chronic supply shortages, and may not have adequate support from the Defense and Security Forces (FDS).
In Muidumbe district, early on 9 October a local source reported an attack that day on Mandava village in the Muambala area in the south of the district. Sources agreed that five were killed, one source saying that the victims were members of the Local Forces. Up to 30 houses were burned.
Meanwhile, security forces have stepped up counterinsurgency operations in Nangade. On 4 October, security forces, according to one source, carried out an operation against an insurgent base near the Ngongo lagoon. On 6 and 7 October, government troops and the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) skirmished with insurgents in the forest near Nkonga, reportedly with the help of surrendered fighters who directed the security forces to the location of an insurgent camp. Casualties, if any, are unknown.
One local source told Cabo Ligado that the pressure of military operations in Nangade, involving ground troops and helicopters, is forcing many insurgents to escape the district or surrender. The source estimated that in recent weeks, around 15 to 20 insurgents have surrendered in Nangade every three days. Eight insurgents, believed to be Tanzanians, were taken into custody by SAMIM forces on 5 October, the source claimed.
Many of those who have escaped seem to have concentrated in Macomia, taking advantage of forest cover south of the Messalo river (see Weekly Focus below). A local source reported that insurgents there have joined forces with fighting groups fresh from attacks in Quissanga and Mueda.
Islamic State (IS) issued a photo report on 6 October for an attack on Homba village in Muidumbe district that occurred 13 days before on 23 September. An initial claim had been issued on 29 September. The 13 day delay is considerable. The previous longest delay for photo reports issued since the appearance of IS Mozambique in May was 10 days. Photo reports are usually issued within a week. One image in last week’s photo report was particularly striking, showing an insurgent toppling a wooden statue of Eduardo Mondlane. Many villages in Muidumbe and Mueda districts, and some in Nangade, have statues or squares that symbolize the history of the national liberation struggle. Many of these were built locally, on the initiative of veterans of the independence war themselves.
Weekly Focus: Messalo River Sanctuary
The Messalo river remains a significant haven and connector for groups of insurgents operating across Cabo Delgado. Attacks undertaken in Macomia, Meluco, Mueda, and Muidumbe districts in recent months have for the most part been close to the river.
Much of the land through which the river passes is underdeveloped, with just two trunk roads running on a north-south axis through Macomia and Mueda districts. Consequently areas around the river which flows west to east provide cover from aerial surveillance and attack, as well as protection against land patrols. Despite the destruction of two significant bases in the insurgents’ main bases of Siri 1 and Siri 2 in September 2021, these areas continue to provide sanctuary for groups falling back in the face of operations elsewhere, such as the prolonged operations in Katupa forest this year.
Sources for last week’s attacks at Litandacua and Nguida indicate that the responsible group or groups are based near Nkoe at a place called Chombaindo. The area is secure, being relatively hilly, and forested. The sources claim these include some who fell back from operations as far away as Metuge district in the south, and from further west along the river at Homba in Mueda district following a clash with security forces there on 23 September. The clash at Homba may have prompted a move east to Nkoe by some. The distances covered are not vast, and the group or groups responsible for the Litandacua and Nguida attacks have the capacity to reach back into Muidumbe and Mueda districts. As Homba is approximately 40 km from Nkoe, this is not unfeasible. If security conditions require it, a move back to the lowlands of southwestern Muidumbe would again give access to the looting that the settlements and farmland there offer.
Currently, local sources indicate that joint SAMIM and FDS operations against insurgent hideouts approximately 20 km east of Nangade town that began in mid-September continue around Namiune and Ngongo, with Rwandan support. They also indicate some insurgents have tried to make their way south through Mocímboa da Praia. Paths to the Messalo river further south will be well known.
Insurgents will also know that operational coordination amongst the intervention forces and FDS has been poor in the past. Bases in Nangade were established in the past 12 months by insurgents retreating from Rwandan operations in Palma and Mocímboa da Praia. The lack of coordination with SAMIM forces in Nangade made it possible for them to establish themselves in that district’s forests, from which they have been targeting FDS outposts and the main trunk road. Unless this operational flaw is fixed, sanctuary is likely to be found to the south, by the Messalo river.
Government Response
Last week saw the fifth anniversary of the first attack of the insurgency in Mocímboa da Praia on 5 October 2017. Though it prompted reflection from some state, humanitarian, and religious authorities, the grim date was overshadowed by the preceding day’s happier anniversary of 30 years of the General Peace Accord, a public holiday. The insurgents themselves did not seem too bothered about marking the occasion either: there was no statement from the group nor any special operation undertaken to mark the event.
Reflecting on the five years, the commander of Mozambique’s police force Bernardino Rafael said that Mozambique’s FDS had initially faced challenges in understanding the identity of the insurgency but that, now after five years, the insurgents were “more fragile and fragmented,” DW reported. Less optimistically, he also said that “terrorism will always exist because it’s an ideology," and that ideology is "difficult to be removed."
The UN's refugee agency UNHCR released a retrospective on 4 October to highlight the difficulties faced by displaced people over the past five years. With almost 1 million people displaced, the agency said it "considers security conditions to be too volatile in Cabo Delgado to facilitate or promote returns to the province." Regarding spontaneous returns that are happening in the province, it said that "people who have lost everything are returning to areas where services and humanitarian assistance are largely unavailable.” The statement followed UNHCR’s first protection assessment mission to Palma, where it says most of the district’s original population of approximately 70,000 have returned. Return to Palma and Mocímboa da Praia is being actively supported by the authorities currently, presumably to demonstrate that the province is secure, and to encourage TotalEnergies to lift the force majeure it declared on the liquefied natural gas project in April 2021.
Also in remembrance of the five-year anniversary, Doctors without Borders (MSF) highlighted the toll of the conflict on the mental health of displaced people. "Living through such a prolonged conflict—with little to no prospect of a stable future—has profound mental health consequences," it wrote. In 2021, MSF teams in Cabo Delgado offered nearly 3,500 individual mental health consultations and facilitated group mental health activities for more than 64,000 people. According to an MSF mental health activity manager, Tatiane Francisco, acute stress and anxiety, combined with loss and grief, are the main reasons people seek mental health consultations at MSF’s projects. The organization further highlighted logistical pressures to provide support to those affected by the conflict, saying that in districts including Macomia, Palma, and Mocímboa da Praia, MSF is the only humanitarian organization "with a regular presence." MSF’s criticism that assistance is skewed towards the south of the province, echoes that of the Rural Environment Observatory (OMR) in its recently published analysis of the conditions faced by displaced people in the province.
The Bishop of Nacala, Monsignor Alberto Vera Aréjula, said that the causes of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado province are not religious and that the coexistence between Christians and Muslims in Mozambique "has always been peaceful." During an interview with InfoCatólica, the bishop said that despite "international opinion" saying that "this was a war of religion," his experience in northern Mozambique has shown that "this is not the case, even if it is true that there are jihadists." He also stressed the good relations between people of different religions in communities across the province. According to the bishop, the extractive industry and organized crime play a part in fueling the violence, as well as "Islam from abroad, usually from foreigners who create mosques financed by we do not know who."
Speaking in reference to last month's attacks in Nampula, Mozambique's Minister for National Defense Cristóvão Chume claimed that the insurgency had not spread into new areas. Speaking to Televisão de Moçambique, he said that the groups which carried out the incursion into Nampula were small and that "it is possible to move very easily, attack at one point and disappear through the woods." Chume also said that all the insurgents will be "captured, sooner or later." With the exception of the assaults on Mocímboa da Praia and Palma, these remarks were, unintentionally, a fair description of insurgent tactics.
According to Cabo Ligado sources, the attacks in Nampula indeed appear to have been carried out by a small raiding party which has now returned to Cabo Delgado, where they have since attacked in the districts of Metuge and Quissanga. However, the trajectory of the group as it marched south from Ancuabe towards Nampula was clear in advance of the attacks. Chume's words are unlikely to wholly reassure the province that a similar incursion will not happen again.
Meanwhile, outside Mozambique, more media reports continued to emerge highlighting Rwandan military operations in Cabo Delgado. On 4 October, Rwanda's The New Times, which has in the past weeks swelled its coverage of the Rwandan operations in Mozambique, published a profile of task force commander Major General Eugene Nkubito, featuring a high-production and theatrical video that showcases Rwandan soldiers providing medical assistance in the village of Quionga.
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