On March 2021, gunmen entered the city of Palma in Mozambique, wreaking havoc and shooting in all directions. Government forces eventually managed to retake the area which lies in the vicinity of the Afungi gas project where millions of dollars have been invested by foreign multinationals. However, the relative stability of Mozambique under the rule of FRELIMO was put to the test when its most economically important, yet impoverished and marginalised province, started exhibiting grievous signs of discontent which translated into a violent Islamist insurgency in 2017, headed by the IS-affiliated group locally known as al-Shabab.
The insurrection has resulted in mass atrocities carried out against the local population and a deliberate policy of forced expulsion. According to UNHCR 756,014 people have been displaced from or within Cabo Delgado province. Horrific testimonies of gruesome killings have also surfaced, whilst the conflict is taking a toll over the safety of women and girls. Girls escaping from the militant camps report mass abductions akin to those of Boko Haram in Nigeria, forced marriages, and possibly trafficking outside of the country into Tanzania. Therefore, uprooting communities, putting youth out of school and into protracted displacement (which yields its own dangers of radicalisation), and disrupting the social fabric.
Still, how has the international community chosen to address this crisis? As it usually does, by utilizing a strategy of containment via predominantly military means amid decreasing funds for humanitarian purposes or development. However, with the insurgents gaining a hold over the territories and the safety the tropical forest terrain provides, the conflict seems to be on its way to becoming protracted. So is displacement and the mass exodus of the locals in search of refuge.
There is a real danger of the conflict spreading from the periphery to the core due to the way observers and relevant authorities ‘normalise’ fluctuating levels of violence in the wider sub-Saharan region. This observation falls within a wider pattern of mismanagement in the African continent that causes conflict to incubate, erupt, spread, and reoccur due to malign relations between the urban capital areas and the neglected peripheral areas, making the latter a ‘free ground for malign influences.
Consequences can range from becoming a safe haven for Islamist insurgents that are cleared out of other conflicts to extending the geographic reach of criminal networks. In Mozambique, neighboring countries have already expressed concern and have rushed to aid the government militarily (training troops, providing intelligence). However, violence in peripheral areas of the African continent is often ignored to the point of becoming ‘normalised’. On a similar vein, the escalating conflict in the eastern Kivu province of DRC in 2006 was perceived by the international community and the government as the ‘order of the day’ due to the routine way in which Congo is considered a place with a ‘natural’ inclination to violence, therefore, the early signals being ignored until the conflict reached an unprecedented level to becoming one of the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The emergencies in Tigray, Ethiopia, or northern Burkina Faso seem to be heading that way too.
The gap between urban elite areas and the poor rural periphery is reinforced by rampant inequality and antagonism between the two. In Cabo Delgado, the insurgency is thought to be fundamentally ‘anti-establishment’. The groups & locals have complained of chronic government neglect and the marginalisation of sectors that traditionally employed them, such as fishing & agriculture. Consequently, fundamentalist preachers have used a ‘socialist message’ to entice recruits by telling them that under Sharia there would be equality and they would be able to share the wealth that the government is unwilling to distribute. Until they started employing violent tactics they had the support of the local communities. Crucially, despite the group using intense anti-civilian combat tactics, the government has been losing credibility in the eyes of the locals, especially considering how inadequate its response and aid programs were to the crisis. Even worse, the Mozambican army was spotted looting Palma after the attackers left, to the anger of the residents. All in a worsening context of state repression against Muslim populations, according to local civil society organisations.
Violence and displacement there should not be taken for granted given that the country has experienced a prolonged time of peace after getting out of a brutal civil war in the early 90s. Similarly, escalating situations elsewhere should not be ignored and marginalised in the agenda of the international community. After all, early action is far more warranted to yield early resolution. Especially when the other option is to ignore the occurrence of mass atrocities and displacement by letting the conflict become rampant, eventually spreading from the periphery to the centre and destabilising not only countries but also whole regions. All in a world where forced displacement is already affecting 82.4 million people.
*Image Credits: Displaced women fleeing violence in Cabo Delgado province at the Centro Agrario de Napala in Mozambique. Photograph: Alfredo Zuniga/AFP/Getty
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