Africa-Press – Mozambique. A young Palma resident is helping the Mozambican Armed Forces identify alleged members of the group that attacked the village in March, the commander of the Mozambican army announced this Thursday.
“She is the holder of sensitive information; we are working with her and providing protection, including to those close to her, so that she remains cooperative,” declared Cristóvão Chume, quoted by Televisión de Moçambique.
After an operation by the Mozambican Armed Forces, the young woman identified at least five alleged insurgents in a group of several men who were detained in the village of Monjane on Sunday, one of whom is her brother.
“She was being manipulated by terrorist groups and was already extracting information from our checkpoints in the town of Palma, as well as in Afungi,” Chume said. The young woman began to collaborate with the authorities after her arrest.
According to Chume, the objective is to understand the motivations and identify the leaders of the “hard core” of the group that attacked the village of Palma in March, as well as discovering when each of them joined the rebels.
“We are still carrying out in-depth investigative work,” Chume said.
Clashes and military operations in Palma district have intensified again in the last week, according to reports by displaced people fleeing to Pemba, the provincial capital, and by military sources, who announced on Wednesday that they had killed 150 rebels.
The district is home to the natural gas project led by Total – at around €20 billion, the largest private investment in Africa – since suspended due to insecurity in the region.
Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has already caused more than 2,800 deaths, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), and displaced 732,000, according to the UN.
