Africa-Press – Mozambique. The latest attack by Islamic State-affiliated insurgents left three dead on Sunday 24, including a community leader from Chitama village, in the interior of Nangade district in Cabo Delgado, VOA was told on Tuesday 26-10 by witnesses and other local sources.
The victims had just returned to Chitama village, reportedly to harvest cashew nuts in their plantations. Almost everyone had left the village nearly eight months ago due to previous attacks by the group locally known as ‘al-Shaabab’.
“They killed the leader and two other people. One of them was in the Tsonga production camp,” Abu Algy, a resident of Nangade, close to the Tanzanian border, told VOA, quoting a survivor, and then stating that “people are tired” of living in IDP camps and “that’s why they risk returning to the villages”, despite the security situation.
Another resident said that “the evildoers killed the leader and two men of the local force (community police)”, adding: “Nowadays, we don’t know where the ‘machababos’ local name for the insurgents] are.”
Abduction and release of women
The attackers allegedly abducted three women whom they forced to carry bundles of cashew nuts, but later released them, the source continued.
The villagers’ accounts are consistent with those of a survivor, who explained that the group entered Chitama village “sneakily”, without firing any shots, and began “to search the fields where people were picking cashew nuts”.
“Many managed to flee and escape the attack,” he stressed.
Authorities have yet to comment on the incident.
Further south of Nangade, in Macomia, two other people were beheaded on Friday 22, while they were drawing drinking water from a well in the village of Lumumua.
Tanzanian media, citing local sources, reported on Monday that an attack attributed to Islamic State militants (ISCAP) left several houses burned in the village of Kilimahewa, near the town of Mihambwe.
Small pockets of resistance had already been reported in September with attacks on villages in Mueda and Quissanga districts causing fatalities and leaving several huts burned to the ground.
Military sources report that military operations by Rwandan, SADC (SAMIM) and Mozambican forces are ongoing in parts of Macomia, Nangade, Mocímboa da Praia, Mueda and Palma districts, suggesting that outbreaks of insurgency persist in these regions.
Information on the ground also indicates that groups of dozens of insurgents are still active in the Macomia-Nangade-Mueda region, with occasional fighting occurring there.
Listen to the audio, in Portuguese.
By
André Batista
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