A group of 30 to 40 members of the armed gangs that have attacked villages in northern Mozambique received training outside the country by militias with links to terrorist organisations, according to a study presented yesterday in Maputo. “These were the ones that were trained by groups operating in the Great Lakes region of Congo, mainly, and others such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya,” said researcher João Pereira, the co-author with Salvador Forquilha and Saide Habibe of the first systematic investigation into the link between recent violence and that type of organisations.
Together, the three authors of the study, “Islamic Radicalisation in Northern Mozambique”, conducted 125 interviews during three visits to Cabo Delgado after the attack on the village of Mocímboa da Praia on October 5, 2017.
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