How Cabo Delgado's riches became fuel for the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique

Rainy season had already begun in 2017 when thousands of artisanal miners working around Namanhumbir, near Montepuez in the northern Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, saw security forces approaching. 

Many were arrested for what the authorities called illegal mining. Most of the miners, known locally as garimpeiros, came from outside the region.

Some returned to their home districts or crossed into neighbouring southern Tanzania. Others joined a little-known armed group that was gaining strength in northern Mozambique – known locally as Al-Shabab and linked to the Islamic State group (although with no connection to the Somali militant group of the same name).

"From then on, it was war," one miner recalled in a 2021 report by the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organisation.

Grievances linked to natural resources became a powerful recruiting tool for the armed group.

Control of natural resources by foreign companies is one of the main themes in Al-Shabab's messaging, according to Joao Feijo, a researcher with the Observatório do Meio Rural, a Mozambican rural affairs research institute.

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Ruby boom

Among Cabo Delgado's most valuable assets are rubies. Deposits discovered in 2009 helped make the province the source of around 80 percent of the world's ruby reserves.

One of the industry's main operators is Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM), which received a 25-year concession in 2012, covering 10,000 square kilometres.

MRM is a subsidiary of British mining company Gemfields Limited, owner of luxury brand Fabergé. Twenty-five percent of the company is owned by General Raimundo Pachinuapa, a senior member of Frelimo, Mozambique's ruling party since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

In 2019, Gemfields agreed to pay €6.7 million in compensation to miners who dropped legal action accusing the company of human rights violations.

The case was brought in London by law firm Leigh Day on behalf of 273 garimpeiros. It said physical and sexual violence, degrading treatment and killings were carried out by MRM security personnel and Mozambican security forces.

Gemfields acknowledged violence had occurred around Montepuez, but did not accept responsibility.

Abuses linked to mining operations have not stopped, said Aly Caetano, Cabo Delgado coordinator for the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, a Mozambican civil society organisation.

"Torture, illegal detention and killings continue," he said. "Meanwhile, the Montepuez-Pemba road remains the worst in the region. This feeling of being robbed feeds the terrorists' narrative."

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Timber trail

Campaigners in Cabo Delgado also accuse authorities of profiting from the exploitation of the region's natural assets.

Far to the north lies Niassa Reserve, a protected area that has also become a centre for trafficking in ivory and valuable timber species.

In August 2020, Mozambican authorities seized 82 containers bound for China at the port of Pemba.

Inside were logs that investigators said had been cut illegally.

Four months later, the containers somehow escaped customs controls. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international environmental watchdog, said 66 were later recovered while on their way to China.

Mozambique's timber industry is heavily dominated by Chinese operators, and is closely linked to the business interests of senior Frelimo figures.

One of them is José Pacheco, a former governor of Cabo Delgado and former agriculture minister.

An EIA investigation into Chinese forestry companies reported financial ties between Pacheco and a businessman identified as Liu. The two men met several times, including during a Frelimo congress in the port city of Pemba.

The World Resources Institute, a United States-based research organisation, said Mozambican timber worth more than $400 million reached Chinese markets in 2016.

Mozambican customs authorities declared only $100 million in exports that year.

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Capitalising on inequality

More than 3,000 kilometres from the capital Maputo, Cabo Delgado remains Mozambique's poorest province.

The United Nations Development Programme reported that average income remains below one dollar per person per day. Illiteracy affects 61 percent of residents, and 45 percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Anger had been building for years in rural communities.

One of the Al-Shabab movement's leaders, Maulana Ali Cassimo, was a former agriculture ministry official who travelled through the countryside on a motorbike denouncing forced evictions, police brutality and what he described as Maputo's control of Cabo Delgado's wealth. Mozambican soldiers patrol past a burned-out truck bearing the words "Shabaab Chinja", a reference to the Islamist armed group, in Mocímboa da Praia on 22 September 2021.

Promises of a fairer system formed part of the group's appeal, said Vasco King of Kundeleya, a human rights organisation based in Pemba.

"Al-Shabab wants to establish an Islamic caliphate," he said. "They believe a fairer order should be put in place. They capitalise on a social situation marked by unemployment and underdevelopment."

Those tensions erupted into open violence in October 2017. Several police stations in the coastal town of Mocimboa da Praia were attacked and around 15 people were killed.

"It was a shock," resident Omar Sufo said. "We knew people were training in the bush, but nobody imagined there would be an attack."

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Gas in the crosshairs

Mozambique's Al-Shabab pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019.

In a July 2020 edition, the group's propaganda newspaper Al Naba carried the headline: "Crusaders, beware of your investments in Mozambique."

Driving foreign economic players out of Cabo Delgado became a stated objective of the group.

Among those in its sights was the consortium developing a huge offshore gas field near the coastal town of Palma, in Cabo Delgado. The project contains reserves estimated at 5,000 billion cubic metres and involves French energy company TotalEnergies and its partners.

After years of its suspension, TotalEnergies announced this year that work on the project would resume.

The number of Al-Shabab fighters remains difficult to establish. The US National Counterterrorism Center estimated there were around 300 militants in 2025 – while the International Crisis Group put the figure at 3,000 in 2020.

The conflict has displaced at least 1 million people, a United Nations agency said.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Gaëlle Laleix, reporting from Cabo Delgado.

It is the first instalment of Mozambique Exposed, an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a global non-profit network of investigative journalists. The project is based on nearly 100 interviews and five months of reporting by 30 journalists from 10 media organisations, including RFI and Les Observateurs de France 24 (France), Evident Media (United States), Expresso (Portugal), M28 Investigates (Rwanda), Paper Trail Media (Germany), SourceMaterial (United Kingdom), ZDF (Germany) and Zitamar News (Mozambique).