Since October 2017, armed attacks in Cabo Delgado, Northern Mozambique have increased in intensity and the spread has widened. Over 1,000 people are thought to have died, and an unknown number of homes and public buildings destroyed. Reports suggest that more than 100,000 people have been internally displaced by these attacks that have been attributed to an armed Islamist sect.
Yet very little is known about who the attackers are, what their strategic objectives are and on whose domestic and international support they rely. Developing multi-faceted solutions to this insecurity will require detailed understanding of the drivers of this extremism, its connection to local informal and illicit economic activity, and the social and structural roots of disenfranchisement and disenchantment.
Participants
Dr Salvador Forquilha, Director and Senior Researcher, Institute for Social and Economic Studies (IESE), Maputo
Dr Liazzat Bonate, Lecturer in African History, University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago
Pedro Esteves, Managing Partner, Africa Monitor, Lisbon
Discussant: Professor José Mateus M. Katupha, Associate Professor, Eduardo Mondlane University, Pemba
Chair: Dr Alex Vines OBE, Managing Director, Ethics, Risk & Resilience; Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House, London
