Mozambique Insurgency

FRELIMO and RENAMO fought a devastating civil war lasting 15 years, killing approximately 1 million people in one of the Cold War's most destructive proxy conflicts, with FRELIMO backed by the Soviet Union and RENAMO by the US and apartheid South Africa.

The Rome General Peace Accords ended the civil war, establishing a fragile multiparty peace and leaving FRELIMO as the dominant governing party under its rebranded market-economy platform.

Vast offshore natural gas deposits were discovered in Cabo Delgado province, attracting billions in foreign investment but delivering little benefit to the province's predominantly Muslim, impoverished local population.

Ansar al-Sunna Wa-Jama'a, a local Islamist group known as Al-Shabaab, launched its first attacks on police stations in Mocímboa da Praia, beginning an insurgency rooted in local grievances over exclusion, unemployment, and religious marginalization.

ISIS formally claimed affiliation with the group, internationalizing the conflict; attacks escalated sharply, featuring mass beheadings, village burnings, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians across Cabo Delgado.

Insurgents seized and held the strategic port town of Mocímboa da Praia for over a year and attacked Palma, killing dozens and forcing TotalEnergies to suspend its $20 billion LNG project; Rwanda and SADC deployed troops in response.

Separately, a 2019 breakdown in the FRELIMO-RENAMO peace process reignited low-level armed clashes in central Mozambique, with RENAMO dissidents led by Mariano Nhongo conducting attacks until his killing in October 2021 largely ended that front.

Rwandan and SADC forces recaptured key northern towns, pushing insurgents out of fixed positions, but guerrilla attacks continued across Cabo Delgado, leaving over 1 million people displaced and the humanitarian crisis unresolved.