Another attack followed, on Saturday night, in the same area, against the Namoto border post between Mozambique and Tanzania, next to the Rovuma River, they added, with no other data available.
Helicopters from Mozambican forces have been flying over the area in pursuit of the attackers and cars with military personnel have moved from the district headquarters, Palma, to the area, sources said.
With the two incursions against Quirinde and Namoto, this became the second consecutive weekend of attacks in the area of the administrative post in Quionga, a coastal area where until now there was no record of incursions by the armed groups that terrorize Cabo for three years Slender.
Quionga has access by sea and by a dirt road, located 20 kilometers north of Palma, a village and district headquarters that hosts the Rovuma natural gas exploration mega project, Africa’s largest private investment.
On February 19, local sources reported an attack on Quionga with the death of four people, the aggressors being repulsed on the 20th by Mozambican forces, fleeing north, towards the border, to this weekend’s conflict zone.
According to reports of the attack on the village of Quirinde, last Friday, the attackers entered the land and the beach in the early evening, at 18:00, surprising the population during dinner time.
The armed group used machine guns and machetes and a mass flight into the woods began, as has been the case with other incursions.
Preliminary reports indicate that seven people died, three of whom were beheaded.
Also, similarly to what has happened in other attacks, local sources report dustrution of houses, looting of food and other products from sales stands, in addition to the abduction of residents.
Quirinde is six kilometers east of Quionga.
The Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo), a ruling party, defended on Thursday in parliament that there is “encouraging news” about the fight against armed groups operating in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, defending cooperation against “terrorism”.
“We have news that gives us encouragement to the growing neutralization and liquidation of terrorists who are trying to seize our wealth in Cabo Delgado,” said Frelimo’s head of parliament in the Assembly of the Republic (AR), Sérgio Pantie.
Armed violence in the northern province of Mozambique, where Africa’s largest private multinational investment is developing, for the exploitation of natural gas, is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than two thousand deaths and 670 thousand displaced people, without housing or food. .
Violence broke out in 2017, some of the raids were claimed by the Islamic State ‘jihadist’ group after 2019, but the source of the attacks remains under debate.
LFO // SO
Lusa / end
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