Mozambique's Cabo Delgado: Seven Years of War, No Exit in Sight

Mozambique's Cabo Delgado insurgency has displaced more than 1.3 million people since 2017, according to figures released this week by the International Organization for Migration, with attacks spreading to three additional districts in the first quarter of 2026 as Rwandan military forces begin a phased withdrawal from the northern province.

For Amina Jacinto, a 42-year-old cassava farmer from Mocímboa da Praia, the statistics describe a life dismantled three times. She fled her village in 2020 when insurgents burned her home and killed her husband. She rebuilt in Pemba, the provincial capital, only to flee again in February when fighters attacked settlements on the city's outskirts. Now she shelters in Montepuez, 250 kilometers from the coast, sharing a tent with eleven relatives.

"Each time they tell us the army has won," Jacinto said at a World Food Programme distribution point last week. "Each time we go home. Each time they come back."

A Conflict Without a Name

The insurgency in Cabo Delgado defies easy categorization. Locally known as al-Shabaab — a name unconnected to Somalia's militant group — the fighters have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for major attacks since 2019. Yet the movement's roots are distinctly Mozambican: a toxic blend of religious radicalism, ethnic grievance, criminal enterprise, and fury at a government that discovered $20 billion in natural gas reserves offshore while the province remained one of Africa's poorest.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project recorded 847 violent incidents in Cabo Delgado in 2025, a 23% increase from the previous year. The Institute for Security Studies Africa estimates that between 5,000 and 6,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, though the true figure may be significantly higher given the difficulty of verifying casualties in areas where journalists and humanitarian workers cannot safely operate.

The frozen gas project represents not merely a corporate setback but a national catastrophe. Mozambique's government had projected that LNG revenues would eventually constitute 40% of state income and transform one of the world's ten poorest nations. Instead, the country's external debt has reached 100% of GDP, according to International Monetary Fund figures, while insurgents control or contest territory containing billions of dollars in stranded investment.

The Rwandan Gambit

When 1,000 Rwandan troops and police arrived in Cabo Delgado in July 2021, they achieved what Mozambique's army and a discredited private military contractor had failed to accomplish: they retook Mocímboa da Praia, the strategic port town that had been the insurgents' de facto capital for over a year. The deployment, eventually growing to 2,500 personnel, was backed by a bilateral agreement and — critics alleged — lucrative security contracts tied to the gas project.

For two years, the Rwandan presence appeared to stabilize the situation. Displaced populations began returning. TotalEnergies executives hinted at a possible 2024 restart. The Southern African Development Community, which had deployed its own mission with troops from South Africa, Tanzania, and other regional states, began discussing exit timelines.

But the insurgents adapted. Unable to hold territory against Rwanda's disciplined forces, they fragmented into smaller cells and spread south into Nampula province and west toward Niassa. The ACLED data shows a geographic dispersal: in 2021, 94% of attacks occurred in three coastal districts; by 2025, violence had been recorded in eleven districts across three provinces.

Now Rwanda has announced a phased withdrawal, with 500 troops scheduled to leave by June 2026. Kigali has cited the need to address security concerns closer to home — a reference to the ongoing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where UN experts have documented Rwandan military involvement. Maputo has publicly welcomed the transition while privately scrambling to fill the gap.

The Human Cost

In the displacement camps ringing Pemba and extending into Nampula province, the numbers translate into daily calculation of hunger and fear. The World Food Programme's March 2026 assessment found that 1.1 million people in northern Mozambique face acute food insecurity, with 220,000 classified at emergency levels — one step below famine.

Health infrastructure has collapsed across much of the province. Médecins Sans Frontières reported in February that 70% of health facilities in contested areas have been destroyed or abandoned. Cholera outbreaks have become recurrent in overcrowded camps with inadequate sanitation. And trauma — both physical and psychological — has become endemic in a population where nearly every family has lost someone to violence or witnessed atrocities.

Dr. Marta Cossa, a Mozambican psychiatrist who has worked in Pemba's displacement camps since 2022, described a generation being shaped by violence. "Children who were five when this started are now twelve," she said. "War is the only world they know. The normalization of this — that is the damage that will outlast any ceasefire."

A Government Under Siege

President Daniel Chapo, who assumed office in January 2025 after the contested election that followed President Filipe Nyusi's constitutional term limit, inherited a security crisis without the resources or credibility to resolve it. The October 2024 election — which international observers said was marred by fraud, violence, and the suppression of opposition protests — left the ruling Frelimo party weakened and the opposition emboldened.

The government's response to Cabo Delgado has combined military operations with what officials describe as a comprehensive development strategy. In reality, neither component has delivered. The Mozambican armed forces remain plagued by poor training, inadequate equipment, and persistent reports of human rights abuses that alienate the civilian population. The development initiatives — billions of dollars promised in reconstruction, agricultural support, and infrastructure — have materialized as donor conferences and glossy presentations while displaced families cook one meal a day over open fires.

Critics, including civil society groups and opposition politicians, argue that the government's approach treats Cabo Delgado as a security problem rather than a political one. "You cannot defeat an insurgency that has roots in legitimate grievance with bullets alone," said Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Centro para Democracia e Desenvolvimento, a Mozambican research organization. "The people of Cabo Delgado have been demanding development, dignity, and inclusion for decades. The response has been extraction and neglect."

What Comes Next

The scenarios presented by regional analysts range from concerning to catastrophic. The optimistic view holds that a combination of continued SADC support, improved governance under President Chapo, and eventual TotalEnergies re-engagement could gradually stabilize the province over a five-to-ten year horizon. The pessimistic view notes that the insurgency has survived every military intervention, metastasized geographically, and now draws on a generation radicalized by displacement and deprivation.

Some observers suggest that only a genuine political process — one that addresses Cabo Delgado's historical marginalization and offers amnesty to fighters willing to disarm — can break the cycle. But the Chapo government has shown little appetite for negotiation, and the insurgents' ISIS affiliation complicates any dialogue framework that international partners might support.

In Montepuez, Amina Jacinto said she no longer thinks about returning home. Her children, she noted, don't remember Mocímboa da Praia. The sea, the fishing boats, the house where they were born — these have become stories she tells, not places they expect to see.

"Maybe my grandchildren," she said, adjusting the pot over her cookfire. "Maybe their children. But not me. I have stopped believing in soon."