When all seemed well and the population was returning to their villages, the residents of Novo Cabo Delgado village, in the administrative post of Chai, in Macomia, were surprised by gunfire early on Friday morning (10) by a group of men dressed in military clothes who are believed to be members of the Alshabab who have been operating in various parts of Cabo Delgado since mid-2017.

According to the Ikweli portal, citing some sources from the village of Macomia, the invasion resulted in three deaths, one of the victims being a female.

"Very early in the morning, they came in and started shooting, the people were organizing themselves for a ceremony and from there everyone ran away and later, with the support of the local forces, they found three people dead, the last one to be found was a lady," said Saide Saide, one of the sources quoted by Ikweli, saying that the ceremony in question was for female initiation rites.

According to another resident, the armed men who attacked the Novo Cabo Delgado village also burned more than a dozen palhotas, claiming that the Litandacua and Miangaleua Local Force had joined in the chase.

A member of the local authority in the village of Macomia, who requested anonymity, described that during the chase there was an exchange of fire and three members of the Local Force were injured, two of them by shrapnel thrown by the alleged terrorists.

"I spoke to one of them, because they had joined the Local Force of Novo Cabo, Litandacua and Miangaleua, so he said that they had found a place and from there the evildoers were the first to see and they shot the men from the local force, three of them, one in the leg", he said.

However, the sources said that the village attacked is not far from a position of the Armed Defense Forces of Mozambique, but when the commander of the local force went to report, the barracks were supposedly abandoned.