More than 140,000 former internally displaced persons have returned to their villages in northern Mozambique. This is after the Rwanda Security Forces (RSF), working closely with their Mozambique Armed Defence Forces (FADM) counterparts, managed to defeat Islamic State-linked terrorists in two districts of Cabo Delgado Province.

 

Businesses have resumed, kids are going to school and rural folks are tending to their previously abandoned shambas in Palma and Mocimboa da Praia Districts.

 

Perhaps to better understand the magnitude of the RSF effort in securing and restoring state authority in these areas, one needs to consider where things stood a few years ago.

 

In October 2017, armed extremists linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched an insurgency in Cabo Delgado. Thousands of civilians were displaced by the fighting while hundreds others were killed.

 

In August 2020, the terrorists seized the port town of Mocimboa da Praia and turned it into their headquarters. More than 50 people were beheaded by the terrorists in April 2020 and a similar number in November 2020.

 

On March 24, 2021, the terrorists seized Palma town, murdering dozens of civilians and displacing more than 35,000 of the town’s 75,000 residents. In general, there was no state authority in about six of Cabo Delgado’s 16 districts and, the situation was worsening every other day as the terrorists aimed to capture more territory in their quest to turn the Province into their Caliphate.

 

Wherever they attacked, they burned and destroyed everything including houses, health facilities, and vehicles. They seized government buildings, robbed banks, blocked roads and hoisted their black-and-white flag over towns and villages across the province.

 

"We want everyone here to apply Islamic law," a Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist told terrified residents in a video that appeared to have been shot in Mocimboa da Praia after an attack in early 2020.

 

But the tide rapidly changed when, in July 2021, at the request of the Government of Mozambique, the government of Rwanda deployed a 1,000-person contingent of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and the Rwanda National Police (RNP) to Cabo Delgado.

 

Rwanda’s deployment, which was based on the good bilateral relations between the two countries, was commended by the AU as a strong and concrete act of African solidarity to support a fellow member state fight terrorism and insecurity.

 

At the time, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, tweeted: “I commend the Republic of Rwanda’s deployment of 1000 RDF & Rwanda National Police members, to Cabo Delgado, at the request of the govt of Mozambique, as a strong and concrete act of African solidarity to support a fellow Member State fight terrorism and insecurity.”

In three weeks, the terrorists were pushed out of their strongholds in areas where the RSF operated. What followed were mop up operations deep into rural jungles of the region. Now, about 14 months after the RSF operation in Cabo Delgado Province started, the civilian population in Palma and Mocimboa da Praia Districts sings songs of praise to the Rwandans.

 

Mozambicans in these liberated areas are often quoted in media reports swearing that if, at some point, the Rwandan forces leave, they too will leave.

 

in Palma and Mocimboa da Praia, communities are struggling to adapt after the prolonged conflict but they are no longer living in constant fear.

 

More than 140,000 people have returned home and are rebuilding their lives as farmers, fishermen and community members.

 

There is no active fighting in Palma and Mocimboa da Praia Districts. There hasn’t been an incident for a long time, although the situation is volatile in neighbouring districts. Services like electricity and water were restored.

 

Access to basic services, such as healthcare, water, food and shelter, remains a struggle for many. But the RSF are not standing by idly. Among others, tons of medicines are regularly airlifted from Kigali for the RSF medical outreach programme in the two districts. On a regular basis, Rwandan medical teams provide free medical services to up to 700 people in a single day. They also have a field hospital in the Aung Peninsula that caters for more complicated cases where intensive care is needed.

 

In Palma alone, local authorities say, life has fully returned to normal. All of the town’s 170 commercial establishments are back in operation. The state institutions are functioning.

 

Palma was the target of one of the most notorious attacks carried out by the terrorists. The district hosts the natural gas exploration project led by Total, the largest private investment in Africa, to the tune of €20 billion. The project was suspended due to insecurity but it has now been resumed.

 

Besides the good bilateral relations and Maputo requesting Kigali for help, in July 2021, the RSF deployment was also grounded in Rwanda’s commitment to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and the 2015 Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians. After stopping the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the current Rwandan government vowed never to merely stand by and watch when war crimes are committed elsewhere. In 1994,  Rwanda was failed by the international community.

 

The country therefore became one of the first countries to adhere to the Responsibility To Protect (R2P or RtoP) principle, a global political commitment endorsed by all member states of the UN at the 2005 world summit in order to address its four key concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

 

Rwanda’s mission in Cabo Delgado is primarily focused on saving innocent civilians who are victims of terrorism.