Cabo Ligado Weekly: 21-27 February
By the Numbers: Cabo Delgado, October 2017-February 2022
Figures updated as of 25 February 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: 1,179
Total number of reported fatalities from organized political violence: 3,785
Total number of reported fatalities from organized violence targeting civilians: 1,660
All ACLED data are available for download via the data export tool and curated data files.
Situation Summary
The conflict in Cabo Delgado province was focused on two fronts last week: Macomia district, which will be analyzed below in the Incident Focus; and Nangade district, where a series of attacks apparently provoked by the expulsion of insurgents from Palma district the previous week, continued. Insurgents carried out attacks on villages in the north of the district, and besieged the district headquarters village before counterinsurgency offensives by Mozambican and the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) forces appeared to result in a stand-down.
The insurgents remained in Nangade district for at least four more days, attacking villages in the areas surrounding the district headquarters where SAMIM forces are stationed, instead of moving west into neighboring Niassa province, as some had expected them to do after retreating from Palma district.
A villager in Tandahimba district on the Tanzanian side of the Ruvuma River first saw fires on the Mozambican side on the night of Sunday 20 February, lasting to the following day. Insurgents spent Monday in Muiha village, 20km northwest of Nangade town, after their Sunday night/Monday morning raids on the villages of Chicuaia Velha, Paulo Samuel Kankomba, and Muiha. Attacks on the Mozambican side continued through to 24 February, with the villages of Muhia and Milola being destroyed, and by the 24th, the insurgents were heading towards the villages of Rutona, Mtamba, and Chianga. A Catholic missionary confirmed that Janguane and Mambo Bado villages were also attacked, and that four more villages, namely Milola, Chianga, Luton, and Napuatakala were next attacked the following day.
News that thousands of people were trapped in their homes in the besieged town of Nangade was also reported on Tuesday 22 February: residents described a complicated situation, feeling imprisoned, too afraid to go out to buy food or run errands. One resident explained via phone that the noise in the background was bombing by government forces on insurgent positions, marking the first sign of a response against the insurgents since their arrival in Nangade. Military operations also started on the same day around Litingina, south of Nangade district headquarters. Gunfire was heard and resistance reported.
The attacks reportedly resulted in a mass exodus, with some seeking safety in Nangade town and others wanting to cross into Tanzania. By Wednesday 23 February, a source said Tanzanian security forces started allowing the people that had gathered in Kisiwani, on the Mozambican side of the Ruvuma River, to cross in canoes to Mlingoti village in Tandahimba district. Ligado sources heard that there were up to 1,000 refugees, but this could not be confirmed.
From Thursday 24 February, the insurgents were said to be on the move again with some heading toward the villages of Rutona, Mtamba, and Chihanga. Another group of insurgents were seen moving east, near Litingina village on Friday. The next day, they were, however, seen returning west.
Information about the Nangade attacks is scarce since so many people were sheltering in Nangade town. Casualty reports only started surfacing late in the week. A source said that when military forces made it to Muiha village, an unknown number of villagers and local militia members were discovered to have been killed, and homes were reduced to ashes.
Counterinsurgency offensives in the district by Mozambican defense forces and the SAMIM appeared to be gaining momentum by Friday 25 February, when three insurgents were killed and two hideouts were destroyed by allied air force patrols near Mocimboa do Rovuma village, 18km from the Tanzanian border.
Insurgents in the coastal district of Macomia staged three attacks on Mozambican defense and security forces positions on 23 February. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State (IS). A Mozambican police trainee was killed by the militants in the attack at Quinto Congresso, according to a leaked internal police document. A video allegedly of the aftermath of the attack showed a beheaded, disembowelled body, with severed limbs scattered across the incident scene.
IS claimed it also attacked defense and security forces positions in Litamanda and Chai on the same day as the attack at Quinto Congresso, though independent confirmation of those attacks is lacking — due to those villages already being empty of civilians. Insurgents reportedly warned villagers in these areas beforehand and so most people had left. On the day of the attacks, Mozambican and SAMIM forces based in the district clashed with the insurgents. A military source alleged that the latest attacks in Macomia were committed by a new group of insurgents from Congo who have recently installed themselves in the district.
A group of armed men were seen on 27 February in the area of Imbada village near the district border between Macomia and Meluco. They were heading west.
There was an attempted robbery by three men at the Tandahimba Catholic Church in Mtwara in Tanzania on Friday 28 January. One of the three robbers was shouting Allahu Akbar as he tried to damage some property. When disturbed, they escaped. They were subsequently caught, beaten and handed over to the police who passed them on to the army on suspicion of being involved with the insurgency. The army later returned them to the police, suggesting they are just regular criminals. The armed robbers’ actions showed they were willing to pose as violent jihadists, despite heightened security force activity in the area.
New information came to light about a few previous incidents this past week. A resident in Nangade town reported that three people were beheaded in Mandimba village when insurgents attacked on 18 February. Details also emerged about an attack on Ntamba Lagoa on 19 February, where a group of at least 35 insurgents, who were aged between 12 and 40 years old, killed two people.
An alleged sergeant from the special operations command of Mozambique’s armed forces was caught transporting weapons at the Rio Lúrio control post at 2 pm on Thursday 17 February, MediaFax reported. Authorities noticed a suspicious sign on one of the bags. Once the owner was identified, the bag was opened. The firearms found included a rocket propelled grenade (RPG-7), an AK-47 and five magazines, which contained 144 rounds of ammunition. The vehicle was a Nagi Investimentos Nampula bound bus which had departed from Chiure in Cabo Delgado province.
Women who escaped insurgent captivity earlier in February have shared their experiences. A relative of a source related how she had been abducted in Mocimboa da Praia in 2020. She explained that life in the bush with the insurgents was very difficult after relocating to the forests of Pundanhar, especially when food was in short supply. During periods when supply chains were compromised and food was not delivered, only the fighters ate. The hunger crisis was so unbearable that the women were sent to collect firewood with only one or two guards because the others were too weak to care. Consequently, her group of seven took advantage of the situation and managed to escape. They all made it to Quitunda, from where Rwandan forces sent them to Pemba. She also revealed how people are afraid of her and the stigma she feels as a former abductee stemming from a lack of understanding among those never captured who believe that women like her went willingly with the insurgents.
A group of eight women also explained how they were rescued by the airforce. They were helped by a young insurgent who told them to leave their hiding spots and wave when they saw helicopters.
Incident Focus: Insurgents Attack Elite Police Unit in Macomia
The attack on an elite police unit in the strategic village of Quinto Congresso in Macomia — one of three such attacks on the same day, if IS claims are to be believed — is a significant act of defiance by an insurgency which the authorities hoped they had put on the back foot.
The attack in the village, which lies around 30km north of Macomia town along the N380 road, and south of the village of Chai, came at around 1:30am on Wednesday 23 February. The target appears to have been a position of Mozambique’s Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR), a police force unit used by the Mozambican government as its most effective fighting force since the peace agreement in 1992 in which they agreed to incorporate members of the opposition and rebel group Renamo into the military.
The UIR position in the village is understood to have been set up because, as well as lying on the N380 which is the main north-south highway in Cabo Delgado, Quinto Congresso also lies on the east-west corridor favored by the insurgents.
UIR reinforcements arrived in the hours following the attack, after which gruesome images and video of the remains of one UIR trainee, who had been beheaded and disembowelled, made their way onto social media. In addition to the photos and footage, an internal police document was also leaked, confirming the death of the man. It is possible that the leaks were made with tacit official approval, in the interests of anti-insurgent propaganda.
Through its usual channels, IS claimed responsibility for the attack on the UIR's position in Quinto Congresso and at Litamanda and Chai, describing the attacks against the “crusader Mozambican army” as successful and boasting of having killed members of the Mozambican forces. No independent confirmation has been forthcoming of the attacks on the UIR at Litamanda and Chai, but one source in the district has since confirmed that insurgents did visit those villages, threatening to kill the few remaining people living there.
IS also released images of weapons they claim they captured from the security forces, and of a number of Mozambican ID documents, supposedly belonging to UIR agents killed or who fled when their base or bases were attacked.
One military source said the insurgents in Macomia have recently received reinforcements from Congo — presumably coming via Tanzania, if the report is true. That would be one reason to fear an intensification of the conflict in Macomia in the coming days and weeks. If the attacks did allow IS to seize all the weapons that it claims to have, that would also equip the insurgency for more attacks. Any uniforms seized will also increase the insurgency’s capacity to make effective attacks. And the group will also have received a confidence boost from apparently successful attacks on what ought to be Mozambique’s best-equipped forces to combat the insurgency.
The well-publicized attack could also have a chilling effect on SAMIM reinforcements reportedly heading for Cabo Delgado, who will likely be charged with combating insurgents in Macomia. But the reports suggest South African forces of a different caliber could be on their way, which could mean heavy fighting to come between them and insurgents. Either way, the attacks last week are certainly a setback for the prospects of locals returning to their homes in the villages of Macomia district. Some 25,000 displaced people are currently sheltering in Macomia town, many of whom no longer have homes to return to. They will also be fearing that the town itself could be vulnerable to attack again.
Government Response
A report by the Mozambican newspaper Ikweli reveals serious cases of gender-based violence in internally displaced people (IDP) centers in the districts of Nampula and Meconta, in the province of Nampula. According to accounts obtained by Ikweli, some women who fled the conflict in Cabo Delgado and found refuge in Nampula are forced to engage sexually with the IDP center staff as a way of getting food aid. The IDP centers in Nampula and Meconta, locations with the largest number of IDPs outside Cabo Delgado province, host mostly women and children. Despite the challenges of social integration due to cultural and linguistic barriers, and in the face of the situation of vulnerability and constant disputes over access to livelihoods and land, women face sexual harassment. The women interviewed recount that by not giving in to sexual favors, they risk receiving late support, or in the worst-case scenario, being excluded from the lists of beneficiaries. Apparently, local authorities claim to be unaware of such situations, despite several published reports depicting the situation.
Concerns about sexual abuse against women in IDP centers came from the World Food Program (WFP). The Head of WFP in Pemba, Maurício Bortee, said in a meeting with representatives of district governments, National Institute for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction (INGC), and cooperation partners that his organization has received complaints from aid recipients about the abuse of power by the community leaders and sexual exploitation by aid workers.
Along with women, another group directly affected by the conflict is the elderly. A report by the international organization Human Rights Watch entitled "No One Is Spared," which documents abuses against the elderly in armed conflicts, describes situations in which elderly women and men in Cabo Delgado are victims of violence when they often cannot flee the conflict zones. The report states that in addition to being caught in the crossfire, where they are killed or wounded indiscriminately, the elderly are also burned to death in their own homes.
In Meluco district, the villages of Mingonha, Nsemuco, Citate, 1 de Maio, Pitolia, and Muaguide are largely uninhabited. Most of the inhabitants have left their respective villages, having moved to the relatively safe areas such as Nanjua, as well as to villages in Chiure district. As a result, most of the children in Meluco district are unable to attend classes this school year. Of the 32 schools in the district, 17 were closed and will not be able to teach. According to the administrator of the Meluco district, these schools were closed due to the lack of appropriate conditions for the teaching, lack of security, vandalization of infrastructure, and massive flight of teachers and students after the attacks in January 2022. In the eastern district of Macomia, the situation is similar. The education sector is expected to enroll 18,371 students for the current school year. However, the figure of enrolled students stood at 8,015, which corresponds to approximately 43%. Compared to 2020, the number of students enrolled in 2022 represents a reduction of over 56%. This situation compromises the future of the children in these areas, further aggravating their mental health and making them vulnerable to abuse and recruitment by armed groups.
On the humanitarian front, food aid and medical assistance have reached more areas affected by the conflict in Cabo Delgado, including those experiencing the return of displaced persons. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), these are the villages of Muatide, Matabalane, Nampanha, and Namande, in Muidumbe district, as well as the village of Quissanga in the district of Quissanga. The return of the displaced people, according to OCHA, is driven by the lack of basic conditions and medical care in the resettlement sites. Meanwhile in Macomia, displaced people expressed before the governor of Cabo Delgado, Valige Tauabo, their frustrations with the government and humanitarian organizations for the lack of support, including the provision of psychosocial assistance, agricultural equipment and inputs to enable them to grow their crops.
A study on the conflict in Cabo Delgado, entitled "Insurgency, illicit markets and corruption," was released last week by the international organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). The study reaffirms the conclusions of several other previous studies that emphasize that socio-economic factors, corruption, and ethnic divisions contributed significantly to the emergence of armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado. The GI-TOC study makes important contributions to understanding how the illicit economy has been affected by the insurgency, the main sources of insurgent funding, and insight into linkages between the insurgency in Mozambique and regional and international extremist networks. In the run-up to the insurgency, Cabo Delgado was a major international corridor for drug trafficking, especially heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine. The illicit economy, the study advances, helped to undermine the rule of law and contributed to the breakdown of government in the province, thus creating fertile ground for the emergence of the insurgency. Although it has shifted drug trafficking routes to the south of Cabo Delgado and into Nampula province, the authors of the study claim that this has not changed the pace of trafficking. A second conclusion is that the insurgency's main sources of funding are secured locally, through local merchants, weapons, and goods captured during attacks, and that the illicit economy represents a small fraction of insurgency funding. Another important finding of the study is that the insurgency in Cabo Delgado has established regional links, but they are weak and their communication with international jihadist networks is irregular.
Last week saw two significant prisoner releases in Tanzania. In Mtwara, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) dropped “terrorism” charges against three men. Holding them to TZS20 million ($8,640) bonds and a commitment to not offend for the next three years, they were released on 23 February. Detained since 2017, their case had yet to come to trial on the basis that investigations had been continuing. In Tanga, the DPP dropped similar charges against another three men, who were released on 25 February on a similar binding order. The three had been held since September 2019. Activist Ponda Issa Ponda has also claimed that charges were dropped against a further 44 detainees on 24 February, but that their families had been unable to meet the binding conditions stipulated.
The six men had been the subject of public campaigns for their release. The three in Mtwara are members of the Tanzania branch of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an international movement that advocates for a Khilafah, or an Islamic state, though does not advocate violence. Hizb-ut-Tahrir launched a campaign for their release in June 2020. Of the three in Tanga, one detainee, Hemed Ayoub Kidege, was a well-known activist in Tanga for the political party Alliance for Change and Transparency (also known as ACT Wazalendo). Though his party did not publicly campaign for his release, his case was regularly featured in Muslim media in Tanzania.
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