Maputo, 30 May (AIM) – Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has claimed that the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces, with the help of Rwandan forces, is defeating Islamist terrorists in a battle that has been raging since Tuesday, in Mmala village, Mocímboa da Praia district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
According to the President, who was speaking, on Wednesday, at the ceremony inaugurating the Infulene Waste Water Treatment Plant, in the southern municipality of Matola, “exactly in the Mmala area, our Defence Forces, together with the Rwandan sister forces, clashed with the enemy”.
“This began yesterday or the day before, in the Nangade area”, he continued, “but the local forces, made up of veteran fighters from the independence war and their descendants, made contact and put some terrorists out of action. This morning the operation is continuing”.
Nyusi said that the operation left “dozens and dozens [of terrorists] on the ground. A lot of material was also seized.”
According to Nyusi, the young people who are standing up to violent extremism in Cabo Delgado are “motivated” in their pursuit of the extremists.
“Those dozens put out of action are the ones who have been accounted for, others are on the run”, he added. “These are difficult times, but our determination helps us state that we own this homeland”.
Since October 2017, terrorist attacks have killed over 4,000 people and forced around a million to leave their home areas and seek refuge in safer places, triggering a humanitarian crisis.
(AIM)
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