Forum Südliches Afrika, 17. Juni 2021: Understanding Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Crisis

Since the first armed attacks by armed extremists in October 2017, the security and humanitarian crisis has rapidly deteriorated in coastal districts of Mozambique’s most northern Cabo Delgado province resulting in several thousands dead and over 700,000 internally displaced. The attack on Palma in March 2021 and the subsequent declaration of Force Majeure by Total of its multi-billion dollar Afungi gas project is a watershed, opening for additional regional and international military support of the Mozambican government’s efforts against these Islamic State affiliated extremists. DrAlex Vines will explain why this crisis developed and will explore what are the prospects for containing and eventually ending this new conflict.

Dr Alex Vines has led the Africa Programme at Chatham House since 2002 and became managing director for risk, ethics and resilience in 2019. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group to Mozambique in 2019 and an UN election officer in Mozambique (1994) and Angola (1992). He worked at Human Rights Watch as a senior researcher on its Africa, Arms and Business and Human Rights Programmes, and has published extensively on Mozambique, most recently in 2021 a chapter on Violence, Peacebuilding, and Elite Bargains in Mozambique Since Independence.