Mozambique: Terrorists Destroy Over 100 Cabo Delgado School

[Valin]

All Africa

Apr. 16 2021

Maputo — Terrorist raids have destroyed 104 schools in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, almost 12 per cent of the 900 schools in the province, according to the Provincial Directorate of Education.

The directorate said that 168,639 pupils have been displaced by the terrorists, known locally as "Al Shabaab", and who boast affiliation to the self-styled "Islamic State". Also among those displaced from their homes are 1,623 teachers from various levels of education, at least seven of whom are known to have lost their lives during the attacks.

Education Directorate representative Manuel Bacar, speaking on Thursday during a webinar on "Implications of the Armed Attacks for Education in Cabo Delgado", said that Mocimboa da Praia, Palma, Quissanga and Muidumbe are the districts most affected by attacks against schools.

Bacar added that a further 194 schools in Cabo Delgado have not been able to start the 2021 school year, because of the lack of security in those parts of the province.

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[Valin]

Strategy Page

Counter-Terrorism: Mozambique Matters

April 16, 2021:

The Islamic terrorism problem has gotten worse, and is happening in a country where Moslems are a minority. In the southeast Africa nation of Mozambique rebels captured a critical port in late 2020, and they are still there. This escalation began in August 2020 when a local Islamic terrorist group with some ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) affiliation seized Mocímboa di Praia, 2,600 kilometers north of the capital. More importantly, it is only eighty kilometers the coastal boom town of Palma, which is ten kilometers from the vital gas facility on the Afungi peninsula. At the end of 2020 their forces probed to within ten kilometers of the natural gas facilities, prompting the French firm (Total) operating the facility to evacuate some staff. In late March 2021 the ISIL led rebels, now calling themselves ISCAP (Islamic State Central Africa Province), captured Palma and declared it their ISCAP capital. Work at the nearby natural gas facility was halted and more staff were evacuated. This time government forces acted more promptly and recaptured Palma during the first week of April. Because Palma is only 30 kilometers from the Tanzanian border, ISCAP is closer a country with an even larger Moslem population than Mozambique and where most foreign Islamic terrorists travel to before crossing the border into Mozambique. The fact that ISCAP captured Palma, if only for about a week, is seen as a major victory by Islamic terrorists in Africa and that will attract more experience Islamic terrorists as well as more contributions from individuals and Moslem organizations, often passing as charities, that react positively to events like Palma.

Since the natural gas discoveries over a decade ago, Mozambique’s northernmost region, the Cabo Delgado area, came to be called the Cinderella province because of the expected oil and natural gas bonanza. Largely ignored by the central government since 1992, when a civil war ended, all of that changed when natural gas was discovered off the coast. There are also significant graphite deposits. Cabo Delgado now represents Mozambique’s economic future. The foreign companies developing the offshore natural gas deposits have had to borrow $15 billion to build the facilities to extract the oil and get it to foreign markets. Another five billion dollars has to be invested to complete the work. Many of the new jobs went to foreigners who had skills none of the locals possessed. Too many of the unskilled jobs for locals went to friends or family of politicians and government officials. In other words, Cabo Delgado residents are angry about their continued poverty despite all the money being spent on the new natural gas complex, which depend on local towns of Mocímboa da Praia and Palma for their airports and docks for bringing in equipment and personnel.

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