MAPUTO,
Mozambique
The deputy chief of the General Staff of Mozambique’s defence forces (FADM), Bertolino Capitine, warned on Monday that the State will not win the conflict in Cabo Delgado if the local population is hostile to the government forces.
“We can have cannons of
last resort, but if the population is hostile to the Mozambican state, there
will be no victories,” he said at a meeting with military personnel deployed in
Macomia district, one of the districts affected by the action of armed groups
in the province of Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique.
He said that the FADM
should maintain its commitment to eradicate “terrorism” in Cabo Delgado.
“The moment has already
arrived for us to destroy the terrorists, the conditions are already created,
what we needed to face terrorism we have already received,” he emphasised.
“The defeat of the
terrorists will be a way to honour the chief of the general staff of the FADM,
Eugenio Mussa, who died a week ago from illness.
Eugenio Mussa said in
December last year that 2021 would be a “decisive year for resolving the
pending issue” in Cabo Delgado”.
The reference by the
deputy chief of the general staff regarding the need for the FADM to maintain
healthy relations with the population of districts affected by armed violence
in Cabo Delgado gains importance in a context in which government forces have
been accused of committing abuses against civilians, drawing dislike from
communities in the region.
Armed violence in
Mozambique’s Northern Province, home to Africa’s largest private multinational
investment, to exploit natural gas, is causing a humanitarian crisis with over
2,000 deaths and 560,000 people displaced, without housing or food,
concentrated mainly in the provincial capital, Pemba.
Some of the incursions
have been claimed by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State since 2019.
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