‘The fight for Cabo Delgado: A hidden war over Mozambique’s natural resources’ 21 July 2021

Luisa Victor heard the war before she saw it. “I was chatting with a friend,” the 28-year-old mother of five tells the Telegraph. “Then we heard gunshots in the same hour. Everyone knows that war begins with a signal.” Moments later, armed insurgents stormed Ms Victor’s village in Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique. They burned houses to the ground, beheaded people and captured women and children, including Ms Victor and her baby. “I was scared and shaking, and I was crying,” says Ms Victor. “I couldn't look at them.” Ms Victor spent a full month last year imprisoned in the insurgents’ headquarters deep in one of Cabo Delgado’s forests. She was held as a domestic slave and witnessed the fighters’ violence….A brutal insurgency has been escalating in Cabo Delgado since 2017. Nearly 3,000 people have been killed and another 800,000 displaced by the fighting.

…Underlying the conflict in Mozambique are a host of other factors, such as decades of neglect by the central government, battles over natural resources, and a thriving black market. These are often overlooked in favour of the more mainstream narrative that Africa is becoming the next frontier for Islamic terrorist activity…While it was impossible for the Telegraph to verify Ms Victor’s account it points to some of the insurgents’ underlying motivations: to benefit from the region’s riches – something that has long been denied them by the government and foreign investors who have been profiting from Cabo Delgado’s vast quantities of timber, precious metals and stones, and one of Africa’s largest natural gas reserves…“All these [youth], that for decades were involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources...were cut [out] by the government, because the government wanted to formalise the exploitation of these natural resources,” says João Feijó, a researcher at the Rural Environment Observatory (OMR) in Mozambique.

…Between 2010-2011, vast quantities of natural gas were discovered off the northern coast of the province. In 2019, French energy giant, Total, confirmed a $20 billion investment and announced plans to begin delivering liquified natural gas from Mozambique by 2024. But if local people expected to benefit, they were sorely disappointed, analysts say. “[Local youth] felt unprotected by the government because there were thousands of...Mozambicans from the south and foreigners that were arriving and getting the best jobs,” says Mr Feijó. “And they didn't have the opportunities for education so they could not compete.”… In 2011, Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) Ltd. – a partnership between the Mozambican company Mwiriti Ltd. and the British company Gemfields Ltd. – was formed. MRM acquired a 25-year concession, granting it exclusive mining rights in a large area of Montepuez and now yielding revenues of $100-120 million per year…MRM strongly denies that the discontent festering around the mines could be contributing to the insurgency, saying it is more than 200km away from the affected area.