People from Miangalewa, in Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, told Lusa on Friday that a group of armed rebels attacked the village, causing locals to flee.
The attack, which took place at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, left hundreds of residents in fear.
“Yes, there was an attack: the terrorists once again defied the authorities,” a resident of Muidumbe, the capital of the district of the same name, told Lusa.
There are no reports of deaths among locals, but the attack on Miangalewa, almost 300 kilometres from the provincial capital of Pemba, prompted people to flee, affecting traffic on National Road 380, with dozens of trucks at a standstill in the town of Macomia.
“We’ve been here since yesterday [Thursday, when] the terrorists attacked Miangalewa,” said a lorry driver on his way to Mocimboa da Praia, a coastal town in the north of Cabo Delgado. “We’re in a bad way.”
After almost 20 hours, traffic began to flow again, following the intervention of Mozambique’s Defence and Security Forces and the Rwandan military, who have been supporting Mozambique in the fight against the rebels.
An armed group attempted to attack Miangalewa was just over a month ago, but was chased out by government forces, who were nearby.
Since October 2017, the province of Cabo Delgado, which is rich in natural gas, has been facing an armed rebellion, with responsibility for some of the attacks claimed by groups associated with the fundamentalist movement Islamic State.
The last large-scale attack took place on 10 and 11 May in Macomia, capital of the district of the same name, with around a hundred insurgents sacking the town, causing several deaths and resulting in heavy fighting with government forces and their counterparts from Rwanda.
Source: Lusa
