According to All Africa reporting on 29 May 2018, suspected Islamic militants
beheaded ten civilians at night on 27 May 2018 in the village of Monjane in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. The attack seems to have been an act of retaliation for information on the militants" movements being passed on to security forces, but it has not been published whether the victims were Christians. According to the report: "The fundamentalist insurgency began on 5 October last year [2017], with attacks on police installations in Mocimboa da Praia. This has been the district most affected, but the raids have spilled over the district boundaries into Palma and Nangade."
Yonas Dembele, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, comments: "Mozambique is still in a fragile state as it recovers from a brutal civil war that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the years 1977-1992. There have been reports that there is tension resuming between the government and the military wing of the opposition party; the presence of Islamic militants in such a fragile country can only make the situation worse. The Islamic militants are apparently referred to locally as "al-Shabaab" or "al-Sunna" and, as All Africa reported on 23 May 2018, have
links to Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and the Great Lakes region. They are reportedly trying to establish a caliphate in Cabo?Delgado?Province, where they are based. As has often been documented, Islamic militants tend to target Christian communities, and Christians in Mozambique, who make up 53.5% of the total population according to World Christian Database, will be watching developments closely."
