Mozambique terror attack
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Mozambique terror attack
MARCH 28, 2021
Mozambique’s government has said dozens of civilians were killed in an attack this week on the northern town of Palma, including seven people whose convoy of vehicles was ambushed as they attempted to flee.
Omar Saranga, a spokesman for the defence and security forces, told journalists on Sunday that hundreds of other people – locals and foreigners – were rescued from Palma, a logistics hub for international gas projects in Cabo Delgado province.
“A group of terrorists sneaked into … Palma and launched actions that resulted in the cowardly murder of dozens of defenceless people,” Saranga said. The exact number of people wounded and killed, or still unaccounted for, remained unclear, while most communications with Palma have been cut off. The town of some 75,000 people had previously been a refuge for people fleeing growing insecurity and violence elsewhere in the province.
The assailants struck Palma on Wednesday, in a seemingly coordinated attack from several directions. Human Rights Watch said the attackers indiscriminately shot civilians in their homes and on the streets. Witnesses described bodies in the streets, some of them beheaded.
Many residents ran into the dense tropical forest surrounding the town to escape the violence, according to Mozambican news reports. But a few hundred foreign workers from South Africa, Britain and France clustered at hotels that quickly became targets for the rebel attacks.
The is just one of the dozens of attacks made on civilians living in Northern Mozambique. This conflict with islamic terrorist has been ongoing since October 2017.
Insurgency in Cabo Delgado
The Insurgency in Cabo Delgado is an ongoing conflict in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, mainly fought between Islamist militants attempting to establish an Islamic state in the region, and Mozambican security forces. Civilians have been the main targets of attacks by Islamist militants. The main insurgent faction is Ansar al-Sunna, a native extremist faction with tenuous international connections. From mid-2018, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has allegedly become active in northern Mozambique as well, and claimed its first attack against Mozambican security forces in June 2019. In addition, bandits have exploited the rebellion to carry out raids. The insurgency is thought to be intensifying, as in the first half of 2020 there were nearly as many attacks carried out as in the whole of 2019.
Ansar al-Sunna (English: Supporters of the tradition) is similar to the name of an Iraqi Sunni insurgent group that fought against US troops between 2003 and 2007. Locals call them “al-Shabaab” but they are a separate organization from Somali Al-Shabaab. The militants are known to speak Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique, Kimwane, the local language, and Swahili, the lingua franca language spoken in the Great Lakes region. Reports also state that members are mostly Mozambicans from Mocimboa da Praia, Palma and Macomia districts, but also include foreign nationals from Tanzania and Somalia.
Please join us in praying for the Mozambique people. For protection and assistance from the international community.
RESOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency_in_Cabo_Delgado
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/28/dozens-of-defenceless-civilians-killed-mozambique-attack
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/28/africa/palma-mozambique-ambush-intl/index.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56550359