Why Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado remains a conflict zone eight years on: beyond bullets and boots
October marks the eighth year since an insurgency erupted in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, transforming a once-quiet coastal region into one of Africa’s most persistent and destabilising conflicts. Attacks continue on a near-daily basis, villagers and analysts say, even as Maputo leans heavily on military responses — deploying national forces, foreign troops and private security contractors to regain control.
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A conflict with many faces
The violence in Cabo Delgado is often framed abroad as an outgrowth of transnational Islamist extremism. That label, and the group’s declared ties to Islamic State, are real and worrying. But the story on the ground is more complex. “While supported by Islamic State, the Cabo Delgado insurgency is driven largely by local factors, including social, political, and economic exclusion by the central government in Maputo,” says Borges Nhamirre, a consultant at the Institute for Security Studies.
Those local factors have driven recruits into the insurgency: chronic unemployment among young men, weak state presence in remote districts, contested land and hunting rights, and the rapid arrival of large-scale extractive projects that have promised prosperity — and delivered few visible benefits to surrounding communities. The result has been a toxic mix of grievance and opportunity for recruiters.
Why the military-first strategy has fallen short
For years the state’s answer has been kinetic: more troops, more raids, and defensive security for energy infrastructure. Governments and corporations have protected gas installations and major roads, sometimes with private contractors, while rural communities bear the brunt of violence and displacement.
“The primary cause of the failure in combating the insurgency is the absence of a holistic strategy,” Nhamirre argues. The evidence is plain: force can clear territory temporarily, but it does not win hearts, rebuild trust or restore livelihoods. Military operations have also sometimes deepened resentments when civilians are caught in offensives or when security gains are perceived as protecting outside investors rather than local people.
There are practical limitations, too. Insurgents operate in dense coastal forests, along shifting shorelines and across porous borders. State forces, often under-resourced or trained for conventional warfare, struggle with intelligence and community-based policing. Meanwhile, the arrival of foreign troops and private military companies has brought immediate tactical gains but little sustainable governance or reconciliation.
What a holistic response would look like
A different approach would not mean abandoning security operations. But it would place them inside a broader strategy integrating justice, development and political inclusion. That would include:
- Community security and local policing reforms to build trust between residents and authorities.
- Targeted economic programs for youth — vocational training, small business support and microcredit — designed in consultation with local leaders.
- Transparent mechanisms to ensure that revenues from gas and other resources benefit provincial services: schools, clinics, roads and land restitution processes.
- Truth and reconciliation-type outreach to address grievances, accompanied by reintegration programs for low-level fighters willing to disarm.
- Long-term investment in state capacity in the north — not just force, but bureaucrats, teachers and health workers who can make governance visible.
Such measures require patience and money, and they demand a shift in mindset from short political cycles to the long haul of state-building. They also require accountability from corporations and donors, and a willingness by central government to cede some decision-making to provincial authorities — a politically sensitive move in highly centralised systems like Mozambique’s.
Lessons beyond Cabo Delgado
The Mozambique case echoes a recurring pattern across the Sahel, parts of the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia: militant groups can thrive where the state is absent, services are poor and economic hopes are dashed. International responses that emphasise military fixes without commensurate investments in governance and livelihoods have struggled to deliver durable peace.
There are also lessons for the private sector. The global race for natural gas and minerals too often prioritises security arrangements that shield assets while leaving host communities marginalised. If companies and investors participating in Mozambique’s gas boom want stability, they must be part of transparent social compacts that deliver measurable local benefits.
Can Maputo change course?
Shifting from a security-dominated response to a comprehensive strategy is politically difficult. It requires admitting that force alone is not enough and accepting the slow work of repairing social contracts. For displaced families living in crowded camps, the abstract debates over strategy translate into urgent needs: safe return, food, schooling for their children and livelihoods that don’t leave them dependent on charity.
Yet the cost of inaction is heavy. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, whole districts have seen markets and farms disrupted, and the long-term economic promise of the region — anchored in liquefied natural gas projects and coastal tourism potential — is at risk. How many years of sporadic security operations will it take before policymakers realise that military gains without social and political integration are ephemeral?
The challenge for Mozambique and its international partners is not merely to repel attacks but to make rebellion unattractive. That requires a strategy rooted in local realities and led, importantly, by local voices. The alternative is more cycles of clearing and returning — and, eventually, the emergence of new grievances and new recruiters.
As the crisis in Cabo Delgado enters its ninth year, the questions are both moral and practical: will leaders invest in the hard, patient work of governance and inclusion? Will companies tied to regional resources accept meaningful social accountability? And will international partners recognise that short-term security contracts do not substitute for sustained development and political reform?
By News-room
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
