How Natural Resources Fuel Northern Mozambique’s Insurgency
A new report has highlighted how grievances linked to natural resources became a powerful recruiting tool for militants in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province. The report, Mozambique Exposed, examines how the exploitation of the region's wealth, widespread corruption, and alleged abuses by security forces helped fuel the insurgency.
The discovery of ruby deposits in Cabo Delgado in 2009 turned the province into the source of roughly 80 percent of the world's ruby reserves. The benefits have, however, been concentrated. Montepuez Ruby Mining, one of the industry's primary operators, which secured a 25-year concession in 2012, is partly owned by a senior member of Mozambique's ruling Frelimo party.
The report said local anger against this and other resource operations had been building for years in rural communities, before finally erupting into open violence in 2017.
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Mozambique:
How Cabo Delgado's Riches Became Fuel for the Islamist Insurgency in Mozambique
RFI, 11 June 2026
For almost a decade, an Islamist group has terrorised Mozambique's northern province of Cabo Delgado. Despite vast reserves of rubies, timber and natural gas, the region remains… Read more »
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Mozambique:
Is There a Case for Dialogue to End Mozambique's Insurgent War?
The New Humanitarian, 18 March 2026
"While military actions have contained territorial expansion, lasting solutions require dialogue." Read more »
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Mozambique:
'Civilians Were Killed, Some Were Even Beheaded'
UN News, 2 December 2025
"They live in community shelters, they live in classrooms which are overcrowded," the UN refugee agency's (UNHCR) representative in Mozambique said on Tuesday, highlighting the… Read more »
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Mozambique:
Cabo Delgado Insurgency Persists Amid Failed Military Strategy
ISS, 7 October 2025
Eight years on, northern Mozambique's terrorist threat remains acute despite the deployment of thousands of local and foreign troops. Read more »
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Mozambique:
Eight Districts in Cabo Delgado Have Been Hit By Jihadist Attacks in Recent Weeks
Agenzia Fides, 26 August 2025
Not only jihadism, but also economic and social demands of the local population, as well as interests related to the exploitation of the region's natural resources (primarily gas,… Read more »
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Mozambique:
Rise in Violence Increasingly Compromising Access to Healthcare in Cabo Delgado
MSF, 16 July 2025
As Cabo Delgado experiences an alarming rise in violence, access to healthcare for communities in vulnerable circumstances is being severely compromised. Nearly eight years of… Read more »
InFocus
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The country's National Disaster Management Institute (INGD) has warned that humanitarian assistance in the northern province of Cabo Delgado is under pressure from the combination of terrorist raids and climatic shocks, which affect the same communities.
The INGC Cabo Delgado delegate, Marques Naba, said the humanitarian response must be adjusted to "a complex and simultaneous scenario'. Naba said
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Attacks in northern Mozambique are spilling over into districts previously considered safe as the violence intensified in the last few weeks, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported. The agency reports that close to 100,000 people have been newly displaced in the past fortnight alone.
"These simultaneous attacks in several districts are generating a huge challenge for humanitarian actors who have to
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Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, has been suffering violent attacks from militants since 2017 that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to become internally displaced. Over 2020, the conflict escalated. In March 2021, it peaked when a coordinated and brutal attack took place in Palma, transforming a once busy city, home to Total's billion-dollar gas liquefaction
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The northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado (file photo).
