People flee villages and fields fearing attacks in Cabo Delgado

Residents of Valopvana and Muisse in the Metugue district of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province are fleeing their villages and agricultural fields out of fear of terrorist groups who attacked the village of Pulo on Wednesday.

Information received from the community, confirmed this Monday by Lusa, indicates that on Saturday the rebels captured a member of the public in the forests of Nampipi, in an agricultural field, whom they asked to find the community of Walopwana, which was supposed to be the next village to be attacked . .

“The terrorists are among us, here, they have not gone far yet. On Saturday they grabbed a man coming from a farm and told him to show him to the village of Walopwana. He was afraid and did so because, according to what they told him, this would be the next point,” noted a source from the city of Metuge, who left his agricultural field in the Muisse community out of fear.

Some residents of Walopwana and Muisse communities, located just over 50 kilometers from the Metuge district headquarters, have already decided to leave their villages and production fields fearing the presence of terrorist groups.

“Me, my wife and my children have been in Metuga since Wednesday. We wanted to go back, but the bandits are still harassing us,” lamented a 55-year-old man from Metuge.

On Sunday, the elderly couple left Metuge to travel to Nampipi, a 60-kilometre journey to take care of a four-hectare agricultural field, but had to turn back after meeting people from Walopwana and Muisse who had also fled in the face of rumors of rebel presence .

“We didn’t continue, we found many people from Muisse and Valopwana who had fled to Metuga,” the 67-year-old said.

The attack in Metuge comes at a time when pests are affecting farmers’ crops, especially in the Nampipi region, threatening crops as farmers flee.

“A lot of produce will be lost in the fields because terrorists are circulating precisely in those areas where there is a lot of food,” the farmer complained.

More than 70 students at a school in Pulo, Cabo Delgado, were locked in a classroom for several hours by rebels who attacked a Mozambican village but eventually escaped unharmed, local sources told Lusa on Thursday.

The group, which included a teacher from this school in the Metugue area, was taken by surprise during an attack by a terrorist group around 14:00 (12:00 Lisbon time) this Wednesday, March 6, while they were attending a science class, a fifth grade student (elementary school), with the rebels entered the room, forcing them to remain inside.

“It was a nightmare situation. My son was there, the rebels arrived and forced everyone to stay in the room while they waited for orders from who knows who,” a local community source from Metuge told Lusa, who received the child four hours later.

According to other sources in the village, the rebels told the population that they had no intention of mistreating the children and that they had locked them in the school to prevent communication, as well as burned houses and looted food, in an attack that sparked According to the same sources, at least one death led to the flight of residents of Pulo, as well as Chauli and Nakutapara to the district headquarters, 30 kilometers away.

After months of relative normalcy in areas of Cabo Delgado affected by armed violence, the province has been registering new movements and attacks for weeks by rebel groups that have restricted traffic at some points on the few paved roads that give access to several areas.

A new wave of terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique led to the displacement of 99,313 people in February, including 61,492 children (62%), according to an estimate released this week by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).