[ad_1]
Islamist insurgents resumed attacks in northern Mozambique after last month's cyclone, killing nearly two dozen villagers and setting fire to houses amid mounting political threat in the run-up to general elections .
A dark jihadist group targeting the Cabo Delgado province since October 2017 briefly ended the attacks after cyclone Kenneth on April 25, leaving 45 dead and 250,000 people affected.
United Nations relief teams and agencies were still searching for survivors and distributing aid when the Islamists returned to action.
In less than a month, insurgents have killed at least 22 people, injured dozens of others and burned down hundreds of homes, according to a record kept by AFP.
Attacks have increased despite new deployments of police and military as authorities struggle to prevent the uprising from disrupting voter registration ahead of the October presidential and legislative elections.
Islamist fighters are attacking isolated communities in the gas-rich, predominantly Muslim northern region since October 2017.
But the group's identity and motives remain unclear.
"The country is a victim and we all need to understand the real reasons," said President Filipe Nyusi last week in an interview with the private newspaper Cbad du Mocambique.
"The defense and security forces are devoting all their resources to this, so that we can learn the motivation (insurgents) and know who these people are".
The government refuses to confirm the details of the attacks, but the AFP has traced the violence through local sources.
Litanies of the dead
On May 3, while the communities were still in shock, armed men stormed the village of Nacate in Macomia district, killing six people and burning a dozen houses.
The next day, the neighboring villages of Ntapuala and Banga-Vieja were attacked. Four people were killed, including a teacher driving a motorcycle and three others in burning houses.
A few hours later, the villages of Ida and Ipho, in the Meluco district, were set on fire after the local population fled to the surrounding forests.
The model was repeated throughout the month.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, a civil action group based in Maputo, attacks have often forced the temporary closure of voter registration offices.
On May 10, insurgents targeted the road linking Pemba, the provincial capital, to the coastal district of Palma, where a major gas project is under construction.
Armed with rifles, the insurgents ambushed vehicles and killed two people traveling in a public minibus – a new tactic in the wave of violence.
A day later, in the village of Mangoma, the attackers beheaded two people walking on a dirt road. A third person was tortured and sent to tell people to leave their villages.
"In the days that followed, there was a climate of terror and the voter registration was paralyzed because the population had fled," said a local source.
In another incident, armed men opened fire on a funeral procession, killing two people while the bereaved were fleeing.
After an attack, a teacher said, "They shouted at us to leave the village saying, 'We do not want anyone to live here. Why are you still here? Do not you see that we are at war? "
Who are they?
Sheikh Saide Habibe, a Maputo-based Muslim leader who wrote a university study on the insurgency, said little was yet confirmed about gunmen.
"This is a small group that originally used rudimentary weapons.In conversations we had with the local people, they think that there are foreign elements among the attackers", Habibe told AFP, referring to camps located on the other side of the Tanzanian border.
"Mozambican nationals are involved in an adventure or as a means of survival."
With more than 200 deaths since the end of 2017, Habibe warned that the authorities seemed unable to quell the violence.
"The longer it takes, the harder it will be – last week, they beat a Muslim leader who publicly condemned the attacks."
The lucrative gas fields off Cabo Delgado add an extra dimension to the insurgency because international exploration companies have been caught up in the violence.
Convoys transporting contractors for the American giant Anadarko have been attacked at least twice. Two people were killed in the latest incident this month.
The company told AFP that she did not think she had been deliberately targeted.
"Is it because we are rich or because there is wealth in Mozambique?" asked President Nyusi during his interview, saying that religion was perhaps only one of the reasons for the attacks.
For the local population, the period leading up to the October elections should be more and more dangerous.
"We are fleeing to the city (of Mocimboa da Praia) but the government says that we should return to our communities," said Barnabas Samuel Mussa, 66, a leader of the Mitumbate village community.
"Our village has already been attacked twice, we have soldiers in armored vehicles, but we live in fear."
Source link
