“Like [the jihadists] If they knew I was a government official, they would have beheaded me,” Tomas Langa, a civil servant in northern Mozambique, told the BBC.
He feels he has had a lucky escape. For his safety we have changed his name.
In the early hours of May 10, Langa woke up to heavy gunfire. When he looked out his window, he saw four armed men standing outside his home in the town of Macomia in the riot-hit province of Cabo Delgado.
He was terrified and ran into the countryside, where he hid for three days, subsisting on cassava plants.
“I was lucky that they just insulted me as I was running away,” he said.
Fighters linked to the Islamic State (IS) group targeted government buildings and positions in the city before looting shops and warehouses.
The gunmen held the area under siege for two days, creating an atmosphere of fear and chaos.
The jihadists raided a medical facility run by aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), seizing vehicles and medical supplies.
Doctors Without Borders said it had no choice but to relocate staff and suspend its operations in Macomia.
Alfane Silva, a father of five, told the BBC he was being held and interrogated by eight armed men. Again, this is not his real name.
“They were wearing military gear and carrying heavy weapons,” he said.
“They told me to run to the bush or they would kill me if I stayed in the city.”
Silva said it took two days for government reinforcements to arrive, but by then the militants had already left.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 700 people have fled this latest round of fighting in Macomia.
Those who remained, like Mr. Silva and Mr. Langa, have no medical facilities and no electricity, and live in constant fear of another attack.
It was the latest resurgence of violence, which had subsided as security forces, backed by troops from neighboring countries, appeared to get the situation under control.
But now many of those troops are being withdrawn.
The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) mission, made up of about 2,000 soldiers from eight countries, has said it will withdraw its troops from Mozambique by July 15 and will not renew its three-year mandate.
Regional security experts have warned that this may be too early as the area remains unstable.
Botswana and Lesotho have already withdrawn their soldiers, while Angola and Namibia are about to leave.
However, Tanzania, which borders the country to the north, will retain 300 troops, reports the private Zambeze newspaper, based in the Mozambican capital Maputo.
Dastan Kweka, a governance specialist in Tanzania, told the BBC that authorities expect security in the region to deteriorate further.
South Africa, which currently contributes more than 1,000 soldiers to the peacekeeping effort, has said it will keep its troops in Mozambique until the end of 2024, but not as part of the Sadc mission.
On the other hand, Rwanda, which is not part of Sadc but has supported Mozambique, has announced that it will send another 2,000 troops to the country.
Rwandan army spokesman Brigadier General Ronald Rwivanga told the BBC that they were “simply strengthening their strength”. The decision had nothing to do with Sadc’s withdrawal or recent attacks, he said.
When Rwanda sent its first 1,000 troops in 2021, it said it was supporting efforts to restore the Mozambican government’s authority in Cabo Delgado.
This followed the signing of several bilateral agreements between the two countries in 2018.
Rwanda’s additional troops will help fill the gaps left by Sadc forces in northern Mozambique.
Meron Elias, East and Southern Africa analyst for Crisis Group, said the Sadc mission in Mozambique faces financial constraints and relies heavily on contributions from member states to keep it running.
She said the regional bloc has instead shifted its focus to stabilizing the precarious situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In December 2023, Sadc sent troops to DR Congo to help the government fight a large number of rebel groups ravaging the east of the country.
The IS-affiliated group al-Shabab in Mozambique – which is not linked to the group of the same name in Somalia – has been active in Cabo Delgado since 2017.
The insurgents have killed hundreds of people, displaced communities and burned down towns and villages.
They have fought for control of the region rich in natural gas and minerals such as hydrocarbons, graphite and rubies.
In July 2021, French energy giant Total Energies was forced to suspend its $20 billion liquefied natural gas project after a shocking attack on the city of Palma.
Following the deployment of Sadc and Rwandan troops in the same year, aid agencies and the government reported that security had improved in some areas and normal life was gradually returning.
Unfortunately, this progress was short-lived.
Attacks have been increasing again since December 2023.
According to the IOM, more than 110,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.
Tomas Queface, a researcher at Mozambican Cabo Ligado website that monitors the violence, said the militants managed to hold Macomia for two days by recruiting more fighters, including children.
A report by campaign group Human Rights Watch mentions two people from one family who saw their 13-year-old nephew looting with the jihadists during the attack.
Mozambique’s northern neighbors are watching what is happening nervously.
In 2020, jihadists attacked villages across the border in Tanzania, killing about 25 people, looting shops and burning houses.
Since then, Tanzania has increased security by imposing curfews in some border villages, increasing patrols and restricting movement between the two countries.
Mr Kweka said this strategy, while successful, has been expensive. Tanzania’s defense budget has increased by 10% every year since 2021.
Meanwhile, concerns are growing that if the insurgency in Cabo Delgado continues to gain momentum, other neighboring countries, such as Malawi, could be affected if insurgents slip across the border, according to analyst Meron Elias.
She said there is some evidence that regional ties are developing between al-Shabab in Mozambique and the allied forces, an IS affiliate active in DR Congo and parts of Uganda – although the level of cooperation is unclear.
Regional security experts say Mozambique’s armed forces could achieve a military victory if they were further strengthened, and now is not the time to withdraw foreign troops.
But the only long-term solution is to tackle the social and economic challenges in the north of the country, where living standards are lower than in the south, fueling complaints of discrimination, which are being exploited by the jihadists.
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