Mozambique Is Burning: How Cabo Delgado Became One of the World's Worst Forgotten Conflicts

Since 2017, Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province has been consumed by a brutal insurgency that has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes. What began as sporadic attacks on police posts by a locally rooted Islamist group has metastasized into a protracted conflict with ties to the Islamic State, exposing the fragility of the Mozambican state, the callousness of its ruling elite, and the limits of international intervention. Despite hosting one of the world’s largest natural gas fields — and attracting a $60 billion investment from TotalEnergies — Cabo Delgado has gone from a province full of promise to a battleground where civilians like Rosalina Maciel watch their villages reduced to ashes.

A government-imposed media blackout has kept the crisis largely hidden from the world, making it one of the least-covered humanitarian disasters on the planet. The violence shows no signs of stopping.

The Making of a Crisis: Understanding Mozambique’s Fault Lines

To understand how Cabo Delgado became a war zone, several foundational facts about Mozambique are essential. First, Mozambique is a majority-Christian nation, with the notable exceptions of two northern provinces — Cabo Delgado and Niassa — where Islam is predominant. Second, ethnicity plays a major role in every facet of daily life, from politics to economics and even conflict. Third, and perhaps most critically, one party — FRELIMO — has ruled Mozambique continuously since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

The fortunes of ordinary Mozambicans have long depended on keeping the mono-party happy.

These dynamics set the stage for what happened on 5th October 2017, the date that can reasonably be called the start of the war. On that day, 30 armed men descended on Mocímboa da Praia, a port town in Cabo Delgado, holding it hostage for 48 hours. They attacked the police station, stealing firearms and ammunition, and killing several people in what police described as an indiscriminate attack aimed at sowing fear and creating public disorder.

It was the first major operation by a group that, at the time, had no official name. Various labels circulated — Al-Shabaab, Al-Sunnah Wal-Jamâa, Swahili Sunna — but Al-Shabaab stuck because, despite having no official ties to the Somali group of the same name, the insurgents shared similar tactics.

Dr. Eric Morier-Genoud, Professor of African History at Queen’s University Belfast, noted that a majority of the attackers had grown up locally in Mocímboa da Praia, while some came from other districts in Cabo Delgado and a few had foreign accents. Almost all of them were living in the town before the attack. Residents who identified the insurgents also cast doubt on the idea that the attacks were truly indiscriminate.

One resident told the press: “They had a machete, a knife and a machine gun and one told me not to be afraid because they were only after the police.”

Escalation: From Arrests to Full-Blown Insurgency

The government’s initial response was heavy-handed and counterproductive. By the 10th of October 2017, police had arrested 52 people, which only seemed to spur the insurgents to respond with more violence. The police escalated further, increasing arrests to 100 and closing three mosques believed to have links with the attackers. The insurgents responded with horrifying brutality, murdering two villagers — one by beheading, the other by burning alive.

This violence served three strategic purposes. First, it sent a message to the government that Al-Shabaab was not a group to be taken lightly; closing mosques and arresting hundreds of people would not be enough to stop them. Second, it served to terrorize ordinary residents into not cooperating with police — fear as a tool of control. Third, it functioned as a recruiting mechanism, attracting new fighters who saw the brutality as a form of strength and defiance against a state that had marginalized its Islamic minority for years.

As its numbers swelled, Al-Shabaab ramped up attacks targeting both civilians and state officials. Their highest-profile target was a national police director, killed on the 17th of December 2017. With every victory and every gun stolen from the police, the group increased not just its appetite for violence but its capacity to inflict it, evolving rapidly from a ragtag group into a terror organization that would still be fighting the state more than eight years after its first attack.

Root Causes: Radical Islam, Poverty, and Broken Promises

As the fighting escalated, analysts began asking deeper questions: why Cabo Delgado, and why now? The answers are complex and contested.

Some experts, including Mozambican Islamic cleric Sheik Saide Habibe, believe radical Islam is a key factor. They argue that young Muslims, often discriminated against by the country’s Christian majority, have been radicalized by extremist preachers from Kenya and Tanzania. These experts also pointed to Mozambican students who had studied at Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, and Sudanese universities as sources of radicalization. These students often struggled to find jobs upon returning to Mozambique and were more critical of local Sufi traditions.

Joseph Hanlon, a senior lecturer at the Open University, offers a different perspective, arguing that poverty is the primary driver. Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, with over half its population living on less than a dollar a day. Cabo Delgado is one of the poorest provinces even within this impoverished nation. After independence, successive governments in Maputo focused on developing the country’s south, leaving the north starved of opportunities.

Local communities such as the Mwani were excluded from power, overshadowed by southern elites and the politically favored Makonde community.

When natural gas was discovered in the province in 2010, residents expected their fortunes to change. By 2017, however, it was clear those promises would not reach Cabo Delgado’s minority communities. Many locals felt the riches were being siphoned off by the Makonde, the elites in Maputo, and foreign corporations. As Mozambican sociologist Professor Elísio Macamo observed: “The attacks exposed the fragility of the Mozambican state, and that the authorities have no idea what is happening in that locality.”

The government attempted an amnesty program, promising rebels jobs and a way out of poverty if they laid down their arms. When this failed, they announced counter-insurgency operations in the forests surrounding Mutumbate, which had become an insurgent stronghold. Maputo also declared the group’s actions terrorism — a designation that did little to stem the tide of violence.

The ISIS Connection: From Local Bandits to Global Jihad

In late January 2018, a pivotal moment arrived. A video spread on social media showing six individuals dressed in civilian clothes, camped in a forest. They covered their faces, brandished rifles, and — speaking in both Portuguese and Arabic — called on Mozambicans to join them in “fighting the devil” and defending the values of Islam they claimed had been corrupted.

The language choice was strategic: Portuguese for the average Mozambican, and Arabic as a claim to legitimacy within the wider universe of Islamist militancy. This video transformed the group’s image from that of local bandits into an ideological project wrapped in the imagery and language of global jihad.

By April 2018, reports emerged that ISIS fighters had infiltrated the country to support the insurgents. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED) reported that the association with ISIS gave the Cabo Delgado insurgents access to both technical assistance and external financial support. The UN reported that the Islamic State had tasked IS Somalia, based in Puntland, with coordinating support across the region through its Karrar hub.

The partnership with IS Somalia sharpened the group’s core focus: challenging the state by exploiting local grievances and targeting the natural gas project. That support paid dividends in May 2019, when insurgents overran the Mozambican Army in Mocímboa da Praia District. ISIS took credit for the attack, claiming it was carried out by the Islamic State of the Central African Province (ISCAP) — a regional designation that included both Mozambique and the DRC.

By 2020, the insurgency was shifting in character. Fighters aligned themselves more openly with the Islamic State, raising its black flag over captured territory. Tactically, they also evolved. Instead of relying solely on indiscriminate brutality, they sought to win over local communities by handing out looted supplies and presenting themselves as an alternative to a government many already distrusted.

The Carrot and the Stick: Xitaxi and the Cynicism of Insurgent Strategy

The insurgents’ shift toward community engagement was not a sign of moderation — it was strategy. They dangled the carrot of redistributing wealth to a poverty-stricken populace while hiding a stick behind their back.

The people of Xitaxi village discovered this on the 7th of April 2020, when Al-Shabaab attacked and first attempted to recruit the village’s young men. When recruitment efforts failed, the insurgents gathered all the young men and executed them in what witnesses described as a brutal massacre. Local journalists reported that many of the victims were beheaded, their bodies left as a warning to the entire region. Surviving villagers fled to refugee camps that were ill-equipped to care for them.

The government’s response to the humanitarian fallout was shockingly callous. South African outlet the Mail and Guardian reported that while the provincial government was concerned with the people’s plight, the national government seemed tired of helping. Armindo Ngunga, head of a government body created to speed up development in the country’s north, told the press: “People cannot spend the rest of their lives receiving food support and complaining that it is insufficient.” It was precisely this attitude from Maputo that the insurgents had successfully capitalized on when wielding the carrot of redistribution.

The U.S. government’s decision to list Al-Shabaab as an ISIS affiliate followed these escalating attacks. Paradoxically, as Professor Chris Alden has noted, this placement on Washington’s terrorism watch list may have inadvertently raised the group’s international profile and even facilitated recruitment.

The Battle of Palma: A Turning Point

The conflict continued to escalate through 2020 and into 2021, with insurgents attacking any location they considered vulnerable while the government played catch-up. ACLED data shows that by the end of 2020, the government was losing control of the north, with insurgents controlling key roads connecting the provincial capital Pemba to Cabo Delgado’s northern districts.

In March 2021, Al-Shabaab used its control of these roads to launch a devastating attack on Palma. For most of its history, Palma was an obscure town. But the discovery of vast natural gas reserves in Cabo Delgado transformed it into a hub for the industry, driven by TotalEnergies’ $60 billion project on the nearby Afungi Peninsula. This made it the perfect target for Al-Shabaab, which had made targeting the natural gas projects a key tenet of its ideology after partnering with ISIS.

Security experts, including ACLED analyst Jasmine Opperman, had warned about the vulnerability of Palma in the lead-up to the attack. Opperman would later write on X: “Why in God’s name was no action taken in response to early warning intelligence? It’s a disgrace.”

The attack began on the 7th of March 2021, when Al-Shabaab captured the border post at Nonje, effectively isolating the town. From this position, insurgents — disguised as civilians, soldiers, and policemen — infiltrated Palma, hiding weapons for the coming assault. On the 24th, more than 100 fighters launched a coordinated three-pronged assault, initially targeting police stations and checkpoints, then using explosives to break into two banks. They also targeted residential neighborhoods and the gas project, killing both locals and foreign workers.

When the dust settled, over 1,100 civilians had died.

What shocked observers was how little resistance the militants faced. Most security forces in the town had fled, and those who remained were quickly overrun. A nearby army unit refused to help Palma, unwilling to weaken its own fortified position on the Afungi peninsula. The government eventually sent troops to recapture the city on the 28th of March, but the militants — demonstrating what Tim Lister, an analyst for West Point’s Combating Terror Center, described as “tactical awareness” — quickly withdrew to avoid being trapped.

For Al-Shabaab, the attack was a major success. They controlled the town for four days, escaped without suffering major casualties, and made off with 23 tons of food and an estimated $1 million in cash. Alexandre Raymakers, an analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNN: “The group’s ability to hit multiple targets simultaneously in a three-pronged approach and the use of small arms fire combined with mortar fire to overwhelm government forces in just a couple of hours shows enhanced command and control and discipline.”

The government attempted to control the narrative by limiting local media coverage and pushing its own story of success. The international media, however, was not so easily managed. The New York Times published a story titled: “Militants Attacked a Key Town in Mozambique. Where Was the Government?”

TotalEnergies pulled out of its project because Maputo had failed to keep a key security guarantee. Soon after, Islamic State leadership declared that Al-Shabaab — now referred to as Islamic State Mozambique (ISM) — would operate autonomously from ISCAP, effectively a promotion for bloodshed.

Where Was the International Community?

The question of why the international community was so slow to respond has two primary answers, according to Professor Chris Alden. The first was regional apathy. For months, key regional players like South Africa and Zimbabwe hesitated, focused on their own domestic political and economic crises. Even Tanzania was slow to act, only deploying forces to its border after insurgents attacked the border town of Kitaya, killing Tanzanian citizens.

The second reason was Maputo itself. President Filipe Nyusi was reluctant to bring in international help, whether from regional partners in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or from nations like France or the United States. The government feared that such intervention would expose how badly it was struggling to contain the insurgents, undermining FRELIMO’s grip on power.

Mercenaries and Controversy: Wagner and the Dyck Advisory Group

Rather than accept international military assistance, the Mozambican government chose to partner with private military companies — with disastrous results.

Russia’s Wagner Group left Mozambique in March 2020 after a series of stinging defeats at the hands of the insurgents. According to the Daily Maverick, these defeats occurred because Wagner soldiers rushed into battle without proper intelligence, training, preparation, or knowledge of the terrain. They also struggled to coordinate with the Mozambican army because they did not speak the same language.

Wagner was replaced by South Africa’s Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), which, despite being more effective on the battlefield, proved even more controversial. Amnesty International reported that DAG operatives repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and homes. Amnesty also accused the DAG of racism, specifically alleging that during the Battle of Palma, DAG operatives prioritized evacuating white victims over black victims.

SADC Intervention: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Failure

It was ultimately the Battle of Palma that spurred greater international intervention. The SADC moved forward with planning a regional military deployment, which arrived in Mozambique on the 15th of July 2021.

The SADC force remained in the country for approximately three years. The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) credited the deployment with dislodging insurgents from their bases, seizing weapons, facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid, and enabling the return of internally displaced persons to their homes. However, these gains proved short-lived. The SADC force withdrew primarily because of chronic underfunding and shifting regional priorities toward the DRC’s fight with M23.

According to Defence Web, a South African security-focused outlet, the SADC withdrawal in mid-2024 left a security vacuum that the insurgents quickly exploited, increasing the frequency of their attacks.

Rwanda’s Role: Battlefield Success, Governance Failure

Alongside the SADC forces, Mozambique signed a bilateral agreement with Rwanda, allowing the smaller nation to deploy 1,000 personnel from its defence forces and police to Cabo Delgado. Over the following years, the number of Rwandan troops rose from 1,000 to approximately 5,000. The Mozambican government justified this increase by pointing to the improved security situation in the region.

While the Rwandan troops have been undeniably successful on the battlefield, the lack of accompanying security reforms in Cabo Delgado has raised concerns among regional observers. Calton Cadeado, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Joaquim Chissano University, has pointed to fears that Rwandan forces could become lax in their operations, worsening the security situation and ultimately making their presence more necessary — a self-reinforcing dependency.

These fears appear to be materializing. According to ACLED, in March 2025, a senior figure in Mozambique’s Local Force — a government-backed militia fighting the ISM — accused Rwandan forces of being unwilling to engage the ISM in combat. He claimed that Rwandan forces often arrived hours after an attack, even when they were located nearby. Such a dynamic risks creating a vicious cycle: the longer Mozambique relies on external troops without addressing its own military weaknesses and governance failures, the harder it will be to rebuild trust in the state.

A Conflict With No End in Sight

More than eight years after the first attack on Mocímboa da Praia, the Cabo Delgado insurgency remains one of the world’s most devastating and least-covered humanitarian crises. The conflict has evolved from localized violence into an ISIS-affiliated insurgency capable of coordinated military operations, while the Mozambican government has consistently failed to address the root causes — poverty, ethnic marginalization, religious discrimination, and governance failures — that fuel recruitment.

International interventions have achieved temporary battlefield successes but have not produced lasting stability. The SADC withdrawal left a vacuum, Rwandan forces face accusations of disengagement, and the government in Maputo continues to prioritize narrative control over substantive reform. With 50,000 people displaced in the most recent surge of violence alone, and a media blackout limiting the world’s ability to bear witness, the people of Cabo Delgado remain trapped in a conflict that, as Rosalina Maciel described it, feels truly endless.

Tactical Evolution: From Territory Seizure to Decentralized Terror

The introduction of international forces — both the SADC mission and Rwandan troops — did not defeat ISM. Instead, it forced the group to adapt. According to Austin Doctor, professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, ISM fundamentally changed its tactics after the Battle of Palma and the arrival of foreign military players. No longer able to hold towns or seize territory in the way it had during its peak in 2020 and 2021, the group fractured into smaller, more mobile cells that pushed further inland, away from the coastal areas where international forces were concentrated.

This tactical shift has made the insurgency harder to combat, not easier. The attacks became sporadic and unpredictable — less about capturing and holding ground, and more about spreading fear across as wide an area as possible. The decentralization of ISM’s operational structure means there is no single stronghold to target, no frontline to push back, and no conventional military victory to be won. Each cell operates with a degree of autonomy, striking soft targets — villages, roads, displaced persons camps — before melting back into the bush.

The consequences for Cabo Delgado’s civilian population have been devastating. The sporadic, random nature of the attacks has rendered the region near ungovernable. What was once a province dedicated to the extraction of natural gas has sunk into a state of lawlessness, with kidnappings, murders, and sexual assault all on the rise alongside the insurgent violence. The security environment has deteriorated to the point where neither the Mozambican state nor its international partners can guarantee the safety of civilians in large swathes of the province.

The Human Toll: 6,100 Dead and 700,000 Displaced

By the summer of 2025, the full scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Cabo Delgado had become starkly apparent. According to the Global Protection Cluster — a network of humanitarian organizations led by the UNHCR — the conflict was estimated to have killed 6,100 people and displaced more than 700,000. These figures represent a significant escalation from earlier estimates and underscore the failure of every intervention attempted to date.

The displacement figure of 700,000 is particularly alarming. It means that a vast proportion of Cabo Delgado’s population has been uprooted at least once, with many displaced multiple times as violence shifts across the province. The attacks witnessed in July and August 2025 were among the most recent waves of violence, forcing people like Rosalina Maciel — the local woman whose village was burned to the ground by militants — to flee once again with nothing. For Rosalina and hundreds of thousands like her, displacement is not a single traumatic event but a recurring cycle that strips away any possibility of rebuilding a normal life.

The humanitarian infrastructure in the region remains woefully inadequate. Refugee camps are overcrowded and under-resourced, and the lawlessness that pervades the province makes it dangerous for aid workers to operate. The government’s longstanding media blackout continues to limit international awareness of the crisis, ensuring that the suffering of Cabo Delgado’s people remains largely invisible to the outside world.

A Path to Peace? The Limits of Dialogue and Strategy

If international intervention has not been a silver bullet, and Maputo has proven incapable of defeating ISM on its own, the question becomes unavoidable: what will it take to bring peace to Cabo Delgado?

One option, favored by current president Daniel Chapo, is dialogue with the insurgents. The idea is not entirely new — former president Joaquim Chissano first suggested it in 2021 — but having a sitting president openly endorse negotiations lends the proposal considerably more weight. However, the prospects for successful dialogue remain deeply uncertain.

Professor Eric Morier-Genoud has questioned how productive negotiations can be when the insurgents’ ultimate goal is the total rejection of Mozambique’s secular state and the creation of an Islamic order. Since ISM’s leadership views this objective as a matter of religious conviction rather than political bargaining, hardline figures within the movement may reject any negotiations outright, regardless of what concessions the government offers.

If dialogue is unlikely to succeed on its own, the alternative is a comprehensive, multi-dimensional strategy. The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has argued that Maputo’s best bet at resolving the conflict is creating a strategy that simultaneously tackles the security, humanitarian, political, economic, social, and religious dimensions of the insurgency. This would mean not only continuing military operations against ISM cells but also investing in economic development for Cabo Delgado’s marginalized communities, reforming governance structures that have excluded the province’s Muslim and ethnic minorities, addressing the humanitarian crisis with adequate resources, and engaging with religious leaders to counter radicalization. It is, as the ISS itself acknowledges, far easier said than done — particularly for a government that has shown little appetite for the kind of deep structural reform required.

The Invisibility Problem: Why the World Isn’t Watching

One of the most insidious aspects of the Cabo Delgado crisis is its near-total invisibility on the global stage. The conflict can seem like small potatoes when compared to the carnage unfolding in Ukraine, Sudan, or Gaza. The death toll, while devastating, is lower in absolute terms. The geopolitical stakes — at least as perceived by major Western powers — are smaller.

International media coverage has been fleeting at best, and the Mozambican government’s deliberate suppression of press access has ensured that even the coverage that does exist is incomplete.

But for the people living through it, the relative scale of the conflict is irrelevant. Everything Rosalina Maciel owned was burnt to ashes. She has no home to return to. The same is true for hundreds of thousands of others across the province. The Cabo Delgado insurgency is proof that even a conflict that has killed comparatively fewer people than the world’s headline-grabbing wars still leaves behind devastation that will take decades to heal — still ruins lives even as it plays out far from the front pages.

Sebastian Traficante, the head of Médecins Sans Frontières’ mission in Mozambique, has articulated the core problem with characteristic directness: “This crisis cannot remain invisible.” Whether the international community chooses to pay sustained attention — committing not just troops but diplomatic energy, development funding, and genuine accountability mechanisms — remains to be seen. The track record to date offers little cause for optimism.

Trapped in a Cycle: The Outlook for Cabo Delgado

The truth is that no one really knows what will bring lasting peace to Cabo Delgado. Experts can propose strategies, regional forces can deploy troops, and politicians can promise dialogue, but what has been tried so far has not worked. The Mozambican government does not appear receptive to the kind of fundamental new approaches — decentralization of power, genuine economic redistribution, security sector reform, inclusive governance — that analysts argue are necessary to address the insurgency’s root causes.

The conflict has entered a grim equilibrium. ISM is too fragmented and mobile to be destroyed by conventional military force, but too weak to seize and hold major towns as it once did. The Mozambican state is too dysfunctional to govern Cabo Delgado effectively, but too entrenched in its FRELIMO-dominated power structures to reform. International partners are too committed to withdraw entirely, but too under-resourced and strategically distracted to escalate their involvement to the level required for a decisive outcome.

If nothing changes, the people of Cabo Delgado — people like Rosalina Maciel — are destined to remain trapped in a cycle of displacement, poverty, and fear. The insurgency will continue to simmer, flaring into periodic waves of violence that uproot tens of thousands at a time, while the world’s attention remains fixed elsewhere. It is, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, one of the worst forgotten conflicts on the planet — and forgetting it has consequences that compound with every passing year.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the root causes of the Cabo Delgado insurgency?

Multiple factors converged to produce the insurgency. Decades of economic marginalization left Cabo Delgado as one of Mozambique’s poorest provinces, with over half the population living on less than a dollar a day and local communities like the Mwani excluded from political power. Religious discrimination against the Muslim-majority north by the predominantly Christian government in Maputo created grievances that extremist preachers from Kenya and Tanzania exploited to radicalize young men. When natural gas was discovered in 2010, locals expected their fortunes to change, but by 2017 it was clear those promises would not reach minority communities — a betrayal the insurgents successfully weaponized.

What was the Battle of Palma and why was it a turning point?

In March 2021, over 100 ISM fighters launched a coordinated three-pronged assault on Palma, a hub for TotalEnergies’ $60 billion natural gas project on the nearby Afungi Peninsula. The attackers infiltrated the town disguised as civilians and soldiers, killed over 1,100 civilians, looted 23 tons of food and approximately $1 million in cash, and escaped without suffering major casualties. The attack exposed profound government security failures and demonstrated enhanced insurgent command and control. TotalEnergies withdrew from its project afterward, and ISIS leadership subsequently granted ISM fully autonomous operational status.

How did ISM evolve from a local militia into an ISIS affiliate?

The group began in October 2017 as a locally rooted Islamist militia, initially known as Al-Shabaab, attacking police posts in Mocímboa da Praia. By April 2018, ISIS fighters had infiltrated Mozambique, and a partnership with IS Somalia provided technical assistance and financial support through the Karrar hub. In May 2019, ISIS claimed credit for attacks under the Islamic State Central African Province designation. After the Palma attack in 2021 demonstrated the group’s enhanced capabilities, ISIS leadership elevated it to fully autonomous status as Islamic State Mozambique.

Why did international military interventions fail to end the conflict?

The SADC mission deployed in July 2021 achieved temporary gains — dislodging insurgents from bases, seizing weapons, and enabling displaced persons to return — but withdrew in mid-2024 due to chronic underfunding and shifting regional priorities toward the DRC, leaving a security vacuum that ISM quickly exploited. Rwanda deployed up to 5,000 troops with battlefield success, but without accompanying governance reforms, created a self-reinforcing dependency. Neither intervention addressed the root causes of poverty, ethnic marginalization, and governance failures that fuel recruitment.

What would a realistic path to peace in Cabo Delgado require?

Current President Daniel Chapo favors dialogue with insurgents, but Professor Eric Morier-Genoud questions how productive negotiations can be when ISM’s goal is the total rejection of Mozambique’s secular state for an Islamic order — a matter of religious conviction unlikely to yield to political bargaining. The Institute for Security Studies argues Maputo needs a comprehensive strategy simultaneously addressing security, humanitarian, political, economic, social, and religious dimensions, including genuine economic redistribution to marginalized communities, security sector reform, and inclusive governance. The government has so far shown little appetite for the structural reforms required.

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• https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/mozambique-civilians-killed-as-war-crimes-committed-by-armed-group-government-forces-and-private-military-contractors-new-report/
• https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/05/mozambique-rescue-attempts-jeopardized-by-racial-discrimination-following-palma-attack/
• https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/53753/understanding-the-jihadi-insurgency-in-cabo-delgado
• https://issafrica.org/iss-today/what-would-it-take-to-stabilise-cabo-delgado