Cabo Ligado Weekly: 31 October-6 November 2022
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-November 2022
Figures updated as of 4 November 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: 1,497
Total number of reported fatalities from organized political violence: 4,398
Total number of reported fatalities from organized violence targeting civilians: 1,947
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
In addition to attacks in Nangade and Meluco districts last week, insurgents demonstrated that their incursion into Namuno on 29 October was not an isolated hit-and-run raid. Insurgents drove deeper into the district and on 5 November, they fell on the village of Pararene, less than 20 km south of Namuno town, the district capital. At least two people were killed, goods looted, and buildings burned. NASA satellites detected a thermal anomaly, indicating fire, directly over Pararene on 5 November.
After the late October attack in Namuno district – its first in five years of conflict – the Governor of Cabo Delgado, Valige Tauabo, visited the district to assure the population that Mozambican Defense and Security Forces (FDS) were pursuing the insurgents and urged people to report any strange movements or unidentified persons. This brings little comfort to those who have already fled. The District Administrator, Maria Felisbela Lázaro, announced that 10,390 people were displaced by the 29 October attack, which included 1,785 men, 2,263 women, and 6,342 children.
The Namuno attacks have also increased pressure south of Cabo Delgado. Lusa reported the administrator of Mecuburi district in Nampula province as saying the district had received approximately 9,000 people “from Namuno district.” As the first attack in Namuno was last month, this likely includes people displaced from neighboring Chiure district. According to District Administrator Orlando Muivane, the "situation is calm" and authorities are working to provide humanitarian assistance to the displaced families.
In Nangade district, insurgents continue to circulate, wantonly attacking villages in their path. On 31 October, insurgents entered Litingina, just over 10 km south of Nangade district headquarters on the Mueda road, killing one and kidnapping two women, according to a security consultant report. This is far from the first attack on the village. On 19 August, a police Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) was ambushed there. The village also witnessed attacks in May, twice in March, and in February.
Insurgents also clashed with security forces at Minhanha, 30 km north of Meluco district headquarters on 1 November, ambushing a UIR garrison and stealing weapons. A statement shared on Islamic State (IS) social media channels claimed that insurgents killed two soldiers and injured several more, but this has not yet been corroborated. Meluco has been a relatively quiet front in recent months, with the last reported attack on 30 September on the N380 road near the border with Macomia.
Notably, IS resumed publishing claims for attacks last week. IS activity in Mozambique had been relatively neglected on affiliated social media channels and in its official weekly newspaper Al Naba for several weeks, but in the latest issue published on 3 November, the IS central media office cleared much of its backlog, acknowledging several attacks, including the high profile raid on the Gemrock mine on 20 October. In a two-page spread, Al Naba also claimed the attacks on Chiute in Ancuabe on 17 October and Savanune in Chiure on 27 October in addition to repeating claims for attacks in Meluco, Macomia, Chiure, and Namuno districts which were published on social media the previous day. The reasons behind the slowdown in IS communications are unclear.
Weekly Focus: OMR Study on Return and Reintegration
Last week’s report from the Mozambican NGO, the Rural Environment Observatory (OMR), “A Return to a New Future, or a Return to the Past,” presents a sobering snapshot on challenges of displacement and return across Cabo Delgado province. Based on interviews with community leaders, public officials, and displaced people, it gives insights into the process of displaced persons’ return to their places of origin, the readiness of authorities to receive them, and their ability to cope upon return. It also sheds light on how the oft-declared policy of amnesty for former insurgents is playing out on the ground.
People return due to their “revulsion” at the conditions they face in camps in the south of the province, OMR has found. The report recounts the now well-known conditions prompting this feeling. Lack of access to land for subsistence agriculture and inadequate food rations from the international community are compounded by the diversion of food aid by community leaders and the subsequent conflicts this creates. Reports of stabilization in the north have prompted voluntary return to Quissanga, Macomia, Muidumbe, and Mocímboa da Praia in order to escape this.
As some decide to return, others arrive. As recently as last week, Cabo Ligado learned of hunger in Ntele Relocation Site in Montepuez, where people are awaiting the next food distribution before making their uncertain return to Mocímboa da Praia. The same camp in August was receiving people displaced from Ancuabe. A new camp established to take the pressure off Ntele was itself under pressure within two months of opening.
Return is happening in sufficient numbers to cause a “perceptible decrease” in numbers of people in camps in Montepuez and Chiure districts. Return is self-funded, often through sale of food aid. Improved security in the province, particularly along main road routes, allows for communal hire of trucks to move people and their goods.
Return is not promoted as such by government but no barriers are put in place. The exception is return to Mocímboa da Praia, which is actively encouraged. In the south, permits to return there are issued freely, OMR says, while in Palma return is funded by TotalEnergies. According to OMR, in mid-October, 2-3,000 people were returning per week, with 50, 000 having returned to the district as a whole. According to the district administrator, the figure was 35,000. TotalEnergies supports transport for those returning from Quitunda, beside the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant site, as well as providing a once off aid package on arrival. In the past at least, this has been in close collaboration with Rwandan intervention forces.
A recent humanitarian assessment report seen by Cabo Ligado describes a clear process for receiving and screening returnees in Mocímboa da Praia and directing them to their original communities, though testimony gathered by OMR suggests things may not run so smoothly. Security does not always allow onward movement to rural areas. Food aid is as precarious as in the camps in the south, or in Palma, leading to some surviving by foraging and salvaging. Women in particular are in difficulties, returning to insecure areas with little opportunities and facing the threat of sexual violence and coercion.
The report also touches on the emerging policy of reintegration of former fighters into communities. The numbers reported to OMR by local leaders are modest but widespread: 29 in Macomia district, 14 in Mocímboa da Praia, nine in Muidumbe, and seven in Nangade. Civil society and religious leaders tell OMR that they are in the dark about the processes for identifying such individuals or supporting communities to receive them.
The issues of return and reintegration of fighters present real challenges to humanitarian actors. An underfunded humanitarian response sees people using aid to fund their spontaneous return to still unstable places of origin. This policy outcome, whether desired or not, requires a policy response. Devising one while access to communities remains restricted will depend on a close relationship with local authorities who are already under pressure. The integration of fighters too presents a policy challenge. If the policy is unstated and processes are obscure, providing appropriate support will be challenging.
Government Response
During the past week, leading African and European political figures met in Maputo for the 42nd African, Caribbean and Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) Parliamentary Assembly, which took place between 29 October and 2 November. During the opening ceremony, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi called for the EU to provide weapons to help combat the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, in addition to the non-lethal equipment that Mozambique has been receiving. The appeal could be seen as a sign that Nyusi is hopeful that the Ukraine precedent will make EU countries consider arming the Mozambican defense forces, but Cabo Ligado understands there is little chance of this happening, due to concerns over Mozambican forces’ human rights record.
The week’s ACP-EU meetings did provide the opportunity, however, for the EU to reiterate its willingness to support Mozambique's development and security through non-lethal means. The bloc emphasized that in its view, a multidimensional approach is required to fight the insurgency. The EU's Head of Pan-African Affairs, Nicola Bellomo, said that "terrorism is not only conquered with soldiers and weapons," adding that a successful peace strategy should encompass actions to change and resolve the conditions that allowed for extremism to take place. Also visiting Maputo last week, the EU Commissioner for Democracy and Demography, Dubravka Šuica, signed six agreements with the country's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Manuel José Gonçalves. This package is worth €148.2 million and will support development projects in areas such as education and energy. The northern provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula, and Niassa will be supported with two main components: a €35 million program aimed at "building resilience," and a €20 million initiative to increase access to water, sanitation, and hygiene for 60,000 people in the region. According to Minister Gonçalves, the package is part of EU's wider support for Mozambique in the period between 2021 and 2027, and comes through the EU’s Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, which replaces the old European Development Fund.
Also during the assembly, Member of the European Parliament and Co-President of the EU-ACP Joint Assembly Carlos Zorrinho said that EU is willing to support “all initiatives” that help prevent the arming of insurgents and suggested the creation of a network of countries that work together to monitor and prevent access to weapons by “terrorist” groups. Despite the good intentions, it is questionable how effective a crackdown on arms smuggling could be in the context of weakening the insurgency given that much of the insurgents’ weaponry is stolen from Mozambican security forces in raids on military garrisons in Cabo Delgado.
Twenty-five cases of sexual abuse by humanitarian and civil society workers have been recorded among people displaced by the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, the Spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Provincial Office, Gilroy Fazenda, said on 2 November. Most of the reports concern humanitarian workers who demanded sex in exchange for food from women and young people, Fazenda added, without naming which organizations were implicated in the cases. To address the issue, the Attorney General’s office is providing special training for prosecutors and bailiffs on gender-based violence. There is a lot left unsaid about how Mozambican authorities and international organizations are responding to these serious allegations. Civil society group Center for Public Integrity (CIP) had already warned about the occurrence of similar cases perpetrated by local authorities in Cabo Delgado in a report released in October 2020. According to CIP, government and UN agencies treated the accusations as a "great taboo" and remained silent on the issue.
In more turbulent developments, the founder and editor of Pinnacle News, journalist Arlindo Chissale, was arrested on 28 October by police in Balama, Cabo Delgado, and held for four days, initially on terrorism charges. Though now released, he still faces charges of impersonating a professional without proper credentials or authorization under the Penal Code. Under these charges, he potentially faces up to nine years imprisonment. In an interview with DW, Chissale said he was visiting Balama on behalf of opposition Renamo to do "active politics" in preparation for Balama's elevation to the category of municipality. According to a Facebook post from 8 November, Pinnacle News is preparing to open a branch in Balama. Conditions in the Balama jail are like a "pigsty," according to Chissale, who added that no food or water had been provided to those incarcerated. It is not the first time for authorities to arrest members of the press on claims of terrorism and this event shows the difficulties faced by local journalists in reporting from Cabo Delgado.
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