In Metuge, the traumas of those who fled the barbarism of the rebels who terrorized the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado for five years are still fresh and, despite efforts to restore stability, fear prevails in that community.

“Now the terrorist is everywhere.“, regrets Lusa Abdul Arlindo, deputy director of the Metuge reception center, one of the main places of reception for displaced people.

A fear that persists, a perception that contrasts with the growing confidence of the authorities, who emphasize that there have never been large-scale attacks like in Palma, in March 2021, and who highlight the foreign support that reinforced the troops.

Attacks in Mozambique. The displaced of Palma exceed 60,000

The authorities consider that the structure of the insurgency has been suffocated and ask “surveillance” by the rebel groups that remain, scattered and on the run, attacking villages as they pass through the rest of the province, leaving marks, evident in Abdul’s laments.

October 5 marks the fifth anniversary of the first attack against police units in Mocímboa da Praia.

It was the beginning of a conflict that would spread throughout the province and that in 2021 would end up suspending the gas projects on which the country largely depends to relaunch the economy.

Five years of cruelty are engraved on the faces and memories of thousands of displaced people in Metuge, a town on the edge of Pemba Bay, the provincial capital, which is on the opposite side, 10 kilometers by boat or 40 kilometers by sea. , by highway. .

Abdul Arlindo, 35, is among the more than 30,000 people who sought refuge there from armed incursions, in poverty, forced to live dependent on support.

“Our life is reduced to waiting for support“, says Lusa Bibiana Simão, 44, who says that she never lost the desire to return to her region of origin, in the Quissanga district, from where she fled in 2020.

The authorities say that the populations of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, the most important towns near the gas projects, can return and that public services are resumed.

However, and at the same time, the reconquest reorients the rebel movement: since June the attacks have intensified in the south of the province of Cabo Delgado, closer to Metuge, and in the neighboring province of Nampula.

“They haven’t entered Metuge’s headquarters directly yet.“But they are the main suspects in violent deaths in neighboring lands in recent months.

Fear spreads through the lands where the populations have their agricultural fields. “We are tired of terrorists,” Ricardo Mendes, 43, another displaced person hosted in Metuge, told Lusa. “Life is improving, but with difficulties,” he says, acknowledging the work of the troops on the ground.

But with new attacks on record, fears have risen again, bringing to light the traumas of those who witnessed the starkest form of insurgency in northern Mozambique. “It seems that they are getting closer to here,” laments Ricardo Mendes.

The fear of new attacks and the hunger that affects most of the families sheltered in Metuge reinforce in many the desire to return home.

“In our community, we used to vary our food […]here we eat the same thing every day, rice and beans”, complains Graça João, another displaced person.

Analyst compares the insurgency to a marathon

The analyst João Feijó considers that the armed violence in Cabo Delgado threatens to continue and the authorities must be prepared to face “a marathon“, rather than “a race” that is quickly resolved.

“I think this conflict will be a marathon, it will not be a 1,500-meter race, as we thought it would be,” he told Lusa, about the five years of conflict.

Insurgent groups “play with time” and prepare”be 10 or 20 years old” terrorizing the region, “living in the bush, looting and stealing”.

“We don’t have time,” he says, alluding to the country’s rush to get oil companies back to exploring for natural gas, the need to end a costly military intervention and the soldiers’ desire to go home.

Feijó believes that the Government has realized that it will have to live with some degree of violence, something that could become a “low intensity conflict“.

“The government itself admits that the problem of instability will last for several years, but we have to live with it,” he adds.

It is simply not known if this will be enough for the return of gas projects.

The researcher considers that this is a response that TotalEnergies should give, the oil company that had to abandon the works near Palma, after the March 2021 attack and that he says is still waiting for security.

The attack marked the start of a third phase of the conflict, he said, in which Mozambique asked for outside help and Rwanda stepped in (along with SAMIM, a mission of the Southern African Development Community), helping to reconquer areas that the state “i couldn’t drive“.

“It was a turning point,” he stresses.

The initial attack took place in Mocímboa da Praia on October 5, 2017, in what is classified as the first phase of the conflict.

A second phase followed, with great pressure from the rebel forces, which grew, established bases, occupied territory and caused the suspension of the Mozambique gas projects, the largest private investment in Africa.

The military offensive of the allied forces reconquered the surroundings of the shipyards (Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, among others) and put an end to the large insurgent bases, where “had contact with the population” and “created an entity contrary to the Government”, describes Feijó.

The remaining rebels returned to the forests and, again, with occasional attacks against relatively remote communities, only now they expanded their range, attacking districts in southern Cabo Delgado and Nampula province.

“We took two steps forward and one step back”, evaluates João Feijó.

Five years later, “still a big fog, it is not clearWho is Mozambique fighting against?

“Maybe it is clear to the Mozambican, Rwandan or SAMIM intelligence services, but this information is not passed on to the public.”

Some attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group, but “what is knowntold by “who was with the insurgents, is that the group is not so homogeneous.”

There are foreigners and there are Mozambicans, “with different levels of radicalization and motivation.”

There are some 800,000 internally displaced persons due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and 4,000 dead, according to the conflict registration project, ACLED.