At least six people were killed in an attack on a village in Cabo Delgado

At least six people were killed in an attack on Wednesday on the village of Pulo in the Metugue district of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, local sources told Lusa today.

The attack took place just under 30 kilometers from Metuge district headquarters at around 2:00 pm (12:00 Lisbon time) on March 6 as the victims tried to flee a rebel incursion into a village, the sources added.

“They killed six people. And the strangest thing is that when one of them was wounded and fell to the ground, the rebels recognized and identified him,” a source from Metuge told Luse.

Initially, Lusa said, only one death was confirmed from the attack.

According to the same source, the behavior of the terrorists after the invasion of the village confirms the suspicions of community members among the rebels who facilitated the invasion.

“In addition to the name of one of the dead, the militants also recognized the head of the village when he fled on a motorcycle,” the source said.

During the same attack on Pulo, rebels burned four houses in the village, all of them of unsafe construction.

“They caused damage and burned the houses of the residents,” complained one of the victims from Metuge.

Following the attack, Defense and Security Forces were on the ground checking the situation.

More than 70 students from a school in Pulo were locked in a classroom for several hours when rebels attacked a Mozambican village, but eventually escaped unharmed, local sources previously told Lusa.

The group, which included a teacher from this school in Metuge district, was caught by surprise during an attack by a terrorist group while they were attending a science lesson in the fifth grade (primary school) with the insurgents. entering the room, forcing them to stay 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 militants told the population that they did not intend to mistreat the children and that they locked them in the school to prevent communication, and also burned houses and looted food.

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).

Mozambican National Defense Minister Cristovan Chume confirmed rebel attacks in four districts of Cabo Delgado province on February 29, but assured that this was not a “resurgence” of terrorist activity in the north.

“I want to say that this is not what is happening, because if this were actually the case, we would say that there are areas or district headquarters that are occupied, without access to the population. groups of terrorists who left their barracks in the Namarussia area, which we said is their base, went further south, attacked some villages and created panic,” said Cristovau Chume.