The reconstruction of the town of Mocímboa da Praia, one of the places most affected by the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado, will include urban redevelopment to improve the lives of the populations and strengthen the security of the neighborhoods, the provincial government said.
“There is a need to review the planning so that the populations that are returning have better conditions,” said the director of the Provincial Environment Services in Cabo Delgado, Reinildo Jamane, quoted by Radio Mozambique.
Mocímboa da Praia was the district in which armed groups carried out their first attack on October 5, 2017, and its headquarters town was long described as the “base” of the rebels. After more than a year in the “hands” of the insurgents, Mocímboa da Praia was looted and almost all public and private infrastructure was destroyed, as well as the power, water, communications and hospital systems.
In total, about 62,000 people (almost the entire population) have left the coastal town due to the conflict in the last four years, with emphasis on the mass escapes that occurred after the intensification of rebel actions in June 2020.
According to the director of the Provincial Environment Services in Cabo Delgado, the redevelopment of the town will also serve to improve the security conditions for the populations that gradually return to their areas of origin.
As already revealed last July by the Ministry of State Administration and Public Service, the rehabilitation of destroyed state infrastructures in at least seven districts affected by the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado will cost around 638 million meticais, with most of the amount to be applied in the reconstruction of state infrastructures located in the town of Mocímboa da Praia.
Overall, the Cabo Delgado Reconstruction Plan, approved by Mozambique’s Council of Ministers in September last year, is budgeted at $300 million and aims to respond to the destruction as well as the humanitarian crisis caused by the armed attacks that broke out in the province in 2017.
Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas, but has been terrorized since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.
There are about 800,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and about 4,000 deaths, according to the conflict registration project ACLED.
Since July 2021, an offensive by government troops with Rwandan support, later joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), allowed the rebels to recover areas where they had been present, but their flight has provoked new attacks in other districts used as passage or refuge.
