Cabo Ligado Weekly: 7-13 November 2022
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-November 2022
Figures updated as of 11 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: 1,504
Total number of reported fatalities from organized political violence: 4,407
Total number of reported fatalities from organized violence targeting civilians: 1,952
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
Last week was one of the most violent in Cabo Delgado in some time, as insurgents struck Namuno, Muidumbe, Macomia, Nangade, and Balama districts, the last of which had never been previously attacked in five years of conflict. On 12 November, insurgents crossed from Namuno district, which itself had not been attacked until last month, and entered Muripa village, less than 10 km from Balama town, where they decapitated at least one person in the fields. Reports suggest insurgents have struck out north towards Montepuez.
Prior to entering Balama, insurgents continued their spree of attacks across Namuno district which began on 29 October. Nanrapa, just 7 km from Namuno town, was hit on 10 November, with insurgents beheading at least one person and abducting several women and girls. The next day, they arrived in the village of Namituri at around midnight and burned several homes. The latest report from the International Organization of Migration records that over 16,000 people were displaced by insurgent attacks in Namuno between 29 October and 8 November.
However, Local Forces did claim one victory over the insurgents in Namuno. On 10 November, just after the assault on Nanrapa, local armed men, apparently called ‘Naparama’ after a civilian militia which rose up against Renamo in the 1980s (see Weekly Focus), intercepted the insurgents and reportedly captured 10 of them. Some rumors circulating on messaging apps suggest that as many as 19 were captured and five were killed. These figures cannot be independently verified but in any case the insurgents clearly retained sufficient offensive capability to continue their push into Balama. According to online news site Pinnacle News, one of the militia members was killed in the battle.
Last week also saw three attacks in Muidumbe district, marking a dramatic escalation in a part of Cabo Delgado which has only seen sporadic violence in recent months, the last attack being in Mandava village on 9 October, where five people were killed. On 7 November, insurgents decided to target this village again, rushing in at night and kidnapping four people, including a pregnant woman, according to news agency Lusa. The next attack came three days later on 10 November in Litapata, about 15 km west of Mandava. Islamic State (IS) claimed on social media that they ambushed the Local Forces, killing two of them. Local sources confirm that the militia were forced to withdraw but the two fatalities have not yet been confirmed. On 13 November, a garrison of Mozambican Armed Defense Forces (FADM) and Local Forces were attacked in Litapata again. Up to two people were killed, including a civilian who was found returning from the fields and beheaded. All of these attacks took place near the Messalo river which separates Muidumbe from Macomia district, where security forces, supported by troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), are still struggling to contain the insurgency.
Insurgents and FADM also clashed in Nguida village, 20 km west of Macomia district headquarters on 10 November. Up to three Mozambican soldiers were killed and three more injured before forces fell back, leaving insurgents to capture abandoned weapons and ammunition. Homes were also burned, livestock was looted, and several people were kidnapped, a local source reported. Nguida has faced perpetual insecurity for many months now.
In Nangade district, insurgents also succeeded in capturing military material from security forces at Ngalonga on 8 November. Reports suggest security forces withdrew before a shot was fired, seeing that they were significantly outnumbered. IS social media channels published photos allegedly of the captured stockpile, which included large quantities of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar rounds.
A second public statement from the insurgents emerged last week. Like a similar one that appeared in October, it was a one page handwritten note left in a village. As in October, the note threatens “endless war” on the “Christian Mozambican army,” and those who collaborate with it. The note goes on to address “Christians and Jews,” and gives them three options: firstly, they can submit to Islam. Failing that, they should pay tax. The final option is, again, “endless war.”
These options are interesting for two reasons. Firstly, they come after a report from Mozambique’s Center for Investigative Journalism found that Bonomade Machude Omar attended a meeting in Democratic Republic of Congo where tactics being pursued in Mozambique were criticized, and Omar was advised that “in the areas under their influence they stop killing civilians and start charging fees to those who want to live in these areas.”
Secondly, and worryingly for authorities across the region, the options also echoed those presented in an IS Central Africa Province video released in August this year. Addressing the “Congolese Christian rulers,” the statement declared that they would continue the fight “until God establishes one of these three for you: Islam, Jizya [tax paid by non-Muslims], or [continuous] Fighting.”
Finally, the options echo exactly those options given to “Jews and Crusaders” in an infographic in last week’s edition of Al Naba, the IS newsletter. In this instance just the first two options were given. The third one was implied: “there is no third one.” Such consistency of messaging underscores the evolving relationship between the insurgency in Mozambique, their counterparts in the region, and IS centrally.
Weekly Focus: Insurgents Sweep Through Namuno and Balama
Over the past two weeks, insurgents have been active in Namuno, and most recently, Balama districts in the province’s southwest, both areas heretofore untouched. Their actions raise questions about their motivations in sending groups of fighters so far south, but also about the capacity of the state to defend districts not yet affected by the conflict in Cabo Delgado, and in the neighboring provinces of Nampula and Niassa.
The group or groups involved appear to be large, and mobile. Between 24 October and 29 October, consecutive incidents in Chiure district indicate a group moving south, from Katapua to Nihamate. Witnesses to the attack in the latter village spoke of there being at least 30 attackers. This may not have been the whole group as on the same day a group appeared 25 km west, in Murameia village in Hucula district. Reports did not estimate numbers, but noted they were driving Mahindra jeeps, and dressed in FADM uniforms. Subsequently this group moved northwest, deeper into Namuno district, where it may have split into smaller groups, before moving north to Balama district.
The group has covered up to 150 km in the past two weeks. With its clear trajectory of moving south through Chiure to the border with Nampula province, before turning west and north through Namuno and Balama, the group is likely not planning on staying. From previous incursions south, and the insurgency’s historical links with Balama, we can interpret their actions to an extent.
The south is not entirely foreign territory to the insurgency. Islamists with a similar theology as the original insurgents in Mocímboa da Praia were present there as early as 2007. That year, a young Balama man, returned from religious studies in Tanzania, and attempted to establish a Salafist leaning mosque in Nhacole village, also known as Muape. He was banished from Balama four years later. Similar attempts to seed such groups were also made in Chiure and Ancuabe districts. There has been speculation that some sorties south in recent months have been to take recruits out of the district. The recent history of Islamist radicalization in the south suggests this cannot be dismissed.
The impact of attacks in Ancuabe and Chiure districts in recent months will not have been lost on the insurgents. Attacks, and the fear of attacks, have disrupted tens of thousands of families across the south. This has placed strain on public administration, and stretched security forces. Namuno district headquarters and neighboring Mecubúri district in Nampula province are feeling the impact of this already.
The impact of actions in Ancuabe and Chiure will not have been lost on IS either. In the past six months, attacks on mining sites near Ancuabe and Montepuez have been highlighted in their weekly Al Naba newsletter. The Syrah Resources graphite mine may therefore be a tempting target for this seemingly confident group on the ground, and for IS more broadly.
Fundamentally, weak state presence in places like Balama is the foundation for the threats faced. A local source understands that there are just 20 police officers in Balama district, who have recently been joined by a detachment from the FADM. The latter is likely to have the mine as one of its top priorities. With so few security forces, it is no wonder that the insurgency is moving outwards to poorly defended districts on the periphery of the insurgency’s main theater.
As elsewhere, Local Forces may fill the vacuum left by the absence of state security. In the north of Cabo Delgado, Local Forces are associated with the state, seen as a veterans militia loyal to Frelimo. In the past week, people in Balama and Namuno have been referring to ‘Naparama,’ a peasant militia founded in the 1980s in Zambezia during the civil war with Renamo. Though Frelimo initially regarded Naparama with suspicion, it eventually allied with them. Yet left out of the 1992 peace agreement, the militia remained a destabilizing influence, occasionally mobilizing around its own interests, such as veterans’ pensions. Like their earlier namesakes, the militia now mobilizing in Namuno is said to recognize protection from spiritual powers. With such a weak state security presence, this is perhaps understandable.
Government Response
President Filipe Nyusi last week rejected claims by the Center for Democracy and Development that pardons he has publicly granted are unconstitutional. Speaking at the Armando Guebuza Institute of Defense Studies in Maputo on 11 November, Nyusi said that the people he has recently been publicly 'pardoning' are civilians who had been taken hostage by the insurgency, and should be reintegrated in society. "The principle of reconciliation is the rule in Mozambique," the president said.
His remarks were followed by more pardons. On 12 November, it was reported by Rádio Moçambique and Notícias that Nyusi granted pardons to 21 "former terrorists" at a rally in Namicopo, Nampula province. According to the report, Nyusi warned the group that pardons cannot be given twice to those who continue to kill others. Carta de Moçambique also reported the story, but described the 21 as people who had “returned from the ranks of the terrorists.”
While Nyusi’s language at the rally leaves open the possibility that they really were members of the insurgency, on balance it seems more likely that they are people who were captured by the insurgency, rather than willing participants. Insurgents who have attacked villages and killed civilians or members of the armed forces are unlikely to receive clemency, and nor is there appetite among Mozambican society for them to be pardoned.
Nyusi's pardons have become a contentious issue – not least because of a lack of clarity about what the president means by the word 'pardon.' What Nyusi has been promoting could be in fact more similar to an indemnity, rather than a pardon. While the individuals publicly pardoned by Nyusi so far have not been through legal or criminal proceedings, they seem to have been cleared of any wrongdoings by the president. Cabo Ligado understands that those who have been pardoned may have not been insurgents executing attacks and killings, but rather people who were captured by the insurgency and forced to carry out activities that support the insurgency such as logistical tasks. A breakdown of such categories is essential to understand the structure of the insurgency and evolving relations within it. Some of those taken hostage or forcibly recruited, may for example, become radical loyalists. Nyusi's proclamations do not lend greater clarity to this.
Nevertheless, prosecutions are taking place. The Judicial Court of Niassa province has opened proceedings against 15 people suspected of recruiting for the insurgency, according to Óscar Basílio, the court's Judge-President, who was cited by Lusa on 7 November. Mozambique's justice system has so far had a poor track record of convicting individuals for offenses related to the insurgency.
While Nyusi spoke in Nampula, Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane paid a three-day visit to Cabo Delgado, between 10 and 12 November. Maleiane's visit focused on Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, areas where the government has been pushing for resumption of gas project activities. According to Rádio Moçambique, the prime minister was "impressed" with the pace of reconstruction of infrastructure at Palma, but admitted that the insurgents’ move into the south of the province is a "worry" to authorities. In a meeting with Maleiane in Pemba, the President of Cabo Delgado's Business Council, Mamudo Irage, asked for forgiveness of tax arrears for businesses operating in the province, as well as a reduction in taxes in the future.
In what would be another sign of the government reaffirming its jurisdiction in conflict-hit areas, Justice Minister Helena Kida said that justice institutions such as courts and notaries will soon resume activities in Cabo Delgado districts hit by the insurgency, Rádio Moçambique reported, without giving a precise date.
The insurgency in Mozambique was the main topic at last week’s meetings of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) in Addis Ababa. In a communiqué released on 14 November, the AUPSC recognized efforts of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), and the support of the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF), but also expressed concerns over the "financial challenges SAMIM continues to experience."
The AUSPC thanked the European Union (EU) for €14 million it has provided through its Early Response Mechanism and the European Peace Facility for peacebuilding efforts in Mozambique, but called on the AU Commission “to continue engaging with the EU to explore all options to facilitate additional support to SAMIM.” It also asked the Commission to help to facilitate the delivery of military equipment which China has donated to the AU, directly to Mozambique through the port of Nacala. The AUSPC also called on “African countries with airlift capabilities” to help transport equipment which is currently at the AU’s Continental Logistics Depot in Douala, Cameroon, and which has been earmarked for SAMIM.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is running out of funding, and risks having to suspend assistance to one million people from February, the agency said. According to the statement, it requires $51 million to be able to continue its operation in Cabo Delgado as well as the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service which is run by the WFP on behalf of the whole humanitarian community. According to WFP, there are nearly 1.15 million people in the province who are suffering “crisis” or “emergency” hunger, with the latest data indicating the situation could deteriorate even further. "Something I want you to keep in mind and in your heart is that these people are displaced and traumatized multiple times," WFP's Mozambique Director Antonella D'Aprile said in a video, adding: "I appeal to the international community not to forget about Mozambique.”
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