Terrorists invaded fishermen’s camp and stole food in Mozambique

A group believed to be rebels invaded a fishing camp and stole food on Thursday afternoon in the Muidumbe region of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, local sources told Lusa this Monday.

The captured camp was located near Lake Nguri, in the town of Miangalewa, the administrative center of Chitunda, and, according to a local source, in addition to looting food supplies, the rebels destroyed the makeshift infrastructure that existed there.

“When they arrived, they started shooting and we fled without taking anything with us to Miangalevu. They took our food and set the huts on fire,” a local source told Lusa.

Another source from Muidumbe said that, in addition to food, the rebels took canoes from the fishermen.

“They used our own canoes to transport stolen food,” complained a fisherman from the town of Miangaleva.

Forca Local, a group of former liberation fighters who support government forces, was contacted but were late to the scene, the source said, adding that no one was killed in the attack.

Reports of new rebel incursions into northern Mozambique have become common in recent days.

The terrorist organization “Islamic State”, through its propaganda channels, said that it executed 11 Christians in Mozambique, in the Mocimboa da Praia region, Cabo Delgado province.

Local sources heard by Lusa on Sunday said the attack took place in Nakitenga, a village in the interior of Mocimboa da Praia district.

These incursions came less than a month after the Chief of General Staff of the Mozambican Armed Forces, Joaquim Rivas Mangrass, announced on August 25 that the country’s terrorist leader, Mozambican Bonomade Machude, had been killed. Omar along with other members of the terrorist group’s leadership.

Bonomade Machude Omar, considered the leader of the radical Islamic State group in Mozambique, was the target of the second phase of the so-called Operation Golpe Duro II carried out by the Mozambican army.

The extremist leader has been described by some experts as a “symbiosis of brutality and vigilance” and is on the US list of “global terrorists” and is the target of European Union sanctions.

Cabo Delgado province has faced armed insurgency for nearly six years, with the Islamic State extremist group claiming responsibility for some attacks.

On the ground, in Cabo Delgado, they are fighting terrorism – attacks that have been occurring since October 2017 and which have driven the advancement of natural gas projects in the region – the Mozambique Armed Defense Forces since July 2021, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community ( SADC).

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the conflict in northern Mozambique has already displaced one million people and nearly 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED Conflict Record Project, while Mozambique’s president admitted this week to “more than 2,000” . deaths.