This part of Mozambique was like Heaven. Now it is a terrorist haven.

In October, we traveled to the northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado to find out how terrorists claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic State are holding on and killing both Muslims and Christians.

Officials in the region and in the West say they are deeply concerned that if the Islamic State branch known as ISIS-Mozambique is not captured, the Islamic State network entrenched in pockets of Africa could become a bigger global threat. .

What locals call “the war” has left the region largely devoid of a peaceful fishing and farming life.

About 6 thousand people died and 2.3 million in up to half of the state people were displaced. In a province rich in natural resources such as rubies, gas and timber, finding food and shelter has become a daily struggle.

After our visit, the tension in the country increased. After disputed presidential elections, Mozambique suffered its worst election-related violence since the end of a long civil war in 1992. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across the country to protest what many believed to be a fraudulent result. by the ruling party, Frelimo. According to the information of the civil society organization Decide Election Platform, about 300 people died during the protests.

In addition, the southern province of Cabo Delgado and Nampula took a direct hit from Cyclone Chido in mid-December, killing many people. 120 peopledisplacing tens of thousands of people, leaving many without food and clean water.

There is no doubt that the insurgency is at its weakest, according to diplomats and security analysts. The main reason for this is that international troops, led by the Rwandan army, have overcome the weaknesses of Mozambique’s poorly equipped and poorly trained armed forces.

The insurgents are now divided into small groups scattered across the dense forests of a province roughly the size of Austria, security experts say, turning the conflict into a game of Whac-a-Mole. Attacks are less than in the past. However, they were more frequent in 2024 than in 2023 and spread to previously unaffected areas.

“The government is doing its best,” provincial governor Valige Tauabo said in an interview.

Where the uprising began

Our Cessna 206 landed on the runway at Mocimboa da Praia, the sleepy fishing village of the rebels’ birthplace. A Rwandan soldier in combat uniform watched us from the control tower.

Because of the high risk of being ambushed, we chartered a luxury plane from the provincial capital, Pemba, that few residents could afford.

We got into a sedan that went around the barricades set up by the Rwandan military and headed to the village.

In October 2017, more than two dozen rebels stormed the Mocimboa da Praia police station, killing two officers. the first attack of the rebellion.

At the time, the group called itself al-Shabaab (analysts say it is unrelated to Somalia’s al-Shabaab). Researchers say started to form around 2005when the teachings of extremist clerics from neighboring Tanzania to the north began to infiltrate mosques and madrassas in Cabo Delgado.

To gain recruits, the extremists told local residents that while they struggled with poverty, their land was rich in natural resources. It had attracted lucrative natural gas reserves about $24 billion in foreign investmentincluding about $5 billion from the United States, they were nearby, near the coastal city of Palma.

Hatred of the government grew multiple reports Mozambican military attack or kill civilians In Palma.

But the rebels’ initial message was quickly lost in their brutality.

In March 2020, Islamist militants gathered villagers at a soccer field in Mocimboa da Praia and warned them not to contact the government or “we will behead everyone,” Sanula Jesus recalled.

Just a few weeks later, Ms. Isa said, she heard gunshots and “Allahu akbar!” early one morning. he woke up from his scream.

She said she ran ashore with her husband and three children and tried to get into boats with others. Wiping away tears with a pink scarf, 33-year-old Mrs. Issa said the rebels grabbed her husband and cut off his head with a machete.

Mrs. Isa, who once cooked rice for the sailors, said, “They are bad. “They destroyed people’s lives – innocent people.”

However, it is not the same as the local population appeals to the government.

“Our disapproval goes both ways,” said Rabia Muandimo Issa, who is no relation to Sanula Issa. He lost his brother and sister and his home in Mocimboa da Praia during a rebel attack five years ago. “We don’t see anything good from the government or the rebels.”

Migration Crisis

For most of his 20 years, Muinde Macassari lived a comfortable life fishing with his family in a shack near the ocean. But after rebels stormed his seaside village of Quiterajo two years ago, he shared a tent with two relatives and slept on a blanket in his aunt’s yard in Pemba.

The temperature is stifling in the tattered tent and the rain seeps through the tattered canvas.

Hundreds of thousands returned to their communities, only to find their jobs, homes and stability gone.

Hundreds of thousands of others like Mr. Macassari are displaced in communities they don’t know.

More than 80,000 displaced people now flock to Pemba, which previously held about 200,000 residents. Aid organizations say the Mozambique conflict is being overshadowed by other global crises and is not receiving much-needed aid.

Mothers with their children on their backs gather at clinics to treat children’s malnutrition. Displaced people crammed into the shacks of family, friends and good Samaritans, using beds as dividing walls.

Mr. Macassari sleeps outside because his aunt’s squat, two-room concrete house is already full of 10 people.

He said he was kidnapped by insurgents, forced to wash his clothes and stand guard, but was never sent to fight. He slept in the forest on an uncomfortable bed made from the leaves of a coconut tree and occasionally ate rice, maize and cassava.

Mr Macassari said he understood some of the grievances preached by the extremists – that the political elite drive around in luxury cars while others are poor. But if the rebels’ grievances are with the government, Mr Makassari wondered: “Why are they killing innocent people?”

He said he escaped one night, using the excuse of a bathroom break. He ran through the bush until he reached a nearby village.

Sour Homecoming

When rebels captured Cheia Cassiano during an attack on Mocimboa da Praia in early 2020, they offered him a choice: You can join us or we can kill you.

Over the next year, Mr. Cassiano, 37, said the rebels forced him to run, lift weights, shoot guns and attack villages. They preached their message loudly: The war will not end until the end of the world; men should wear trousers and women should wear long skirts; everyone had to give allegiance to Islam, not to the government.

“I was worried,” Mr. Cassiano said. “Within the rebellion, if you don’t act according to the plan, they can kill you.”

Rebels Mocimboa also took control of Praia in August 2020 and held for a year before troops from Rwanda and southern African countries drove them out. It was the longest time insurgents occupied a city during the conflict.

Mocimboa da Praia was emptied during the 2020 invasion. But in 2022, residents began to return and life returned to normal in many ways. The downtown market bustles at night with street vendors and rumbling motorcycle taxis. At sunrise, fishermen gather around a sandy bay, prepare nets and wooden boats, and dry fish on tarpaulins. Teams compete on dirt soccer fields.

But with a little research, it’s easy to find deep physical and mental scars.

The tower of the Catholic church in the center of the city stands tall, but most of the building is in ruins. A neighborhood elementary school is mostly torn down, with faded chalkboards reminding parents of the deadline to register their children. A hospital hospital is just a metal skeleton.

There are only broken foundations where statues of two Mozambican liberation heroes, Eduardo Mondlain and Samora Macelin, once stood.

Many residents returned after the battle to find empty patches of land where their homes had once been made of red clay and thin logs.

Mr. Cassiano, who joined the fighters after being kidnapped, said his house was set on fire. He rebuilt it and now sells fish for a living, but bears the visible scar of the conflict: He lost his right hand. He said that he had an argument with his fellow rebels over the bicycle he took from the village they raided. They accused him of stealing the group leader’s bicycle and cut off his hand in accordance with Sharia law.

He is trying to recover

Children in an art therapy workshop at the community center next to the displaced camp in Mocimboa da Praia sometimes draw headless stick figures or sculpt clay mounds into rifles.

On one of the last days, the children sat in a circle and sang, keeping the rhythm and smashing plastic bottles filled with stones.

“Children have the right to play and live like children,” they read.

A 12-year-old boy from Mocimboa da Praia said he was only 8 years old when he was kidnapped by rebels and repeatedly sexually assaulted while in captivity. She was beaten once for not wearing her hijab properly. He ran into the bush with several women and says he ate sand to survive.

According to his aunt and uncle, with whom he lived after his parents were killed in a rebel attack, he became erratic when he returned home.

“I’ve seen people killed!” her aunt said as she screamed with sudden screams.

She is now back in school and says she is beginning to heal by spending time with other child survivors who gather at a center run by the Community Development Foundation, a local nonprofit.. As we sat on the ground talking, he looked down, trailing the sand with a branch. He said that the terrible things he experienced are now his motivation for his future life.

“I want to be a nurse,” she said, “so I can help other people in my community.”