Violent persecution against Christians is mounting in Mozambique, with jihadist attacks having slaughtered thousands and displaced an estimated 600,000 people in the north of the country.
A recent incident saw militant jihadist group Ahlu Sunnah wa Jama’ah, known as al-Shabab, attack Napala village in the northern Chiúre district, killing 20 and displacing 2,000, adding to the already catastrophic national total.
The attackers burned buildings, sometimes with people inside them, and destroyed a church in the Christian-majority village, as revealed by Open Doors. The situation deteriorated further when national military forces retreated, enabling the terrorists to exert maximum destruction of people’s homes.
This incident follows several similar attacks across the region. Open Doors' spokesperson for work in Sub-Saharan Africa, Jo Newhouse*, revealed that al-Shabab takes advantage of its links to ISIS to acquire resources to overpower national military and security personnel. This, in turn, fuels attacks on local villages and emboldens the group's sense of cause.
“Weak governance has led to weak infrastructure and preparedness to adequately tackle the situation,” she told en. “Militaries are not prepared in terms of arms or training to fight the insurgency with the same intensity that these jihadists fight. Weak governance also creates a socio-economic environment where many are easy prey for radicalisation. These groups also exploit existing social ills to create further division and recruit more members.
“The other issue that is concerning is that governments are often not transparent about how bad the situation is. In Mozambique, we see that the media is kept from reporting on the insurgency and anyone who speaks out faces retribution.”
Despite the majority of the nation’s population identifying as Christians, Cabo Delgado church leader David Samuel* outlined that believers hold no political power with which to combat the growing Islamic threat. Instead, Muslims hold both political and economic influence in the northern epicentre of the crisis, further advancing their insurgency.
Samuel described the perfect storm facing the church: “While the church in Mozambique may be big, it is not as unified or organised as it should be to respond to the insurgency. However, the local church in Cabo Delgado is actively involved in distributing aid, offering protection, shelter and other basic health services to the affected.
“The other reality is that, especially [in] the north, Mozambique has [experienced] several natural disasters so there are these different reasons for displacement and destruction which just compound the crises. There is barely any time to adequately respond and recover between the next attack or next natural disaster.”
*Names changed for security reasons
