Recent attacks in villages in the Ancuabe district, which is home to thousands of displaced persons from the Islamic insurgency, have increased the climate of insecurity in resettlement neighborhoods and IDP camps in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province, several displaced persons told VOA on Monday..

"There is no security," one of the leaders of an IDP camp in Metuge, who requested anonymity, told VOA, saying the insecurity situation deteriorated further after the insurgent group invaded a neighboring village in Ancuabe and killed four people Saturday.

"Unfortunately, in those days we are having a bad time. Since Saturday until today we haven't slept because of the insecurity, because information comes to us of attacks in nearby villages, so we are not sleeping at all," he lamented.

The official said that the IDP camp does not have a security force and the native population from several nearby villages have started to stay overnight in the bush as a way to escape any incursion by the insurgents.

"We are really bad off. The people from here in Empire, even from the other side, are going to the bush to sleep, we have no way to go to the bush, we're here in the village and we're saying 'let's sleep right here in the village, the one who is found will be killed, the one who manages to escape will escape and it's worth it, than to go to sleep in the bush," he noted, clarifying that it is an act of desperation, because there is no security anywhere anymore.

Another person in charge of an IDP camp, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that the insecurity has taken sleep away from the IDPs hosted in the camps or resettlement neighborhoods because they have nowhere else to run.

The source added that in the attack in Ntutupue the defense and security force avoided the worst by being able to warn in time of the plan to invade the village, which allowed the population to leave the area in advance.

"It was the troops themselves who alerted the chiefs of that community, and the chiefs in turn alerted the people. It was from then on that those who had a place to go began to flee, and those who didn't stayed," said the camp official, insisting that "people who have nowhere else to go end up being beheaded.

Meanwhile, the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) in Pemba has rescheduled for today, Tuesday 14, the usual weekly briefing, held every Monday, without, however, giving any reasons for the postponement.

Attacks and escorts

It should be noted that on Sunday the 12th, the police activated a military escort of vehicles on the EN1, Mozambique's main highway, in the section between Metuge and Ancuabe, following a threat of attack by an armed group, which killed four people in an invasion of a village along the road the day before.

The convoy was deactivated in the early evening, after security measures were taken, allowing free movement of the section, a person connected to the matter assured VOA. Ancuabe is the tenth district to be directly affected by the insurgency in Cabo Delgado.