FILIPE NYUSI

Mozambicans are planning marches across the country to honor Azagaia, a popular protest rapper and fierce government critic, who died last week

Mozambicans are planning marches across the country to honor Azagaia, a popular protest rapper and fierce government critic, who died last week.

Extremist rebels in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province have killed a worker for the international charity Doctors Without Borders, shortly after a former vice president of the organization was asked to produce a report into the humanitarian situation in the conflict-hit region.

Fleeing beheadings, shootings, rapes and kidnappings, nearly 1 million people are displaced by the Islamic extremist insurgency in northern Mozambique.

Tesla is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite.

A joint force of Mozambican and Rwandan troops has regained control of a strategic port from Islamic extremists who held the town in northern Mozambique for a year, the countries’ defense ministries have announced.

Southern African countries on Monday inaugurated a regional military mission to help Mozambique take back control of its gas-rich northern province from jihadists that have been rampaging across towns and villages for nearly four years.

A new surge of the coronavirus is finally penetrating Africa’s rural areas, where most people on the continent live, spreading to areas that once had been seen as safe havens from infections that hit cities particularly hard.

Southern African leaders are meeting in Mozambique’s capital Maputo on Thursday to discuss ways to respond to the violence by Islamic extremist rebels in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province where thousands of people have been killed and displaced.

The rebel attack on Mozambique’s northern town of Palma has highlighted the growth of the insurgency in the southern African country.

Tanzania's new President Samia Suluhu Hassan, center, arrives to pay her respects as the body of former president John Magufuli lies in state at Uhuru stadium in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Saturday, March 20, 2021. Ten of thousands of Tanzanians came out to view Magufuli's body at Uhuru Stadium in the country's largest city, Dar es Salaam, over the weekend. Suzan Mtua, 30, died with four school-age children from the same family when there was a stampede of people wanting to view the body Sunday, Heri Mtua, a family spokesman, said. “The children had demanded they also attend the funeral of President Magufuli,” he said. President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was Magufuli's vice president and succeeded him, was joined by nine African heads of state on Monday for Magufuli's state funeral.

In their battle against the extremists the Mozambican military and police are committing human rights abuses, charges the Amnesty report. Mozambique's extremists have allied themselves with the Islamic State group, taking the name Islamic State Central African Province. In the videos studied by Amnesty, the soldiers speak Portuguese and Shangaan, a language from southern Mozambique. Government troops lost control of Mocmboa da Praia around August 11, after intense fighting in and around the town and port. The government has since been reportedly gathering troops in the nearest towns of Mueda and Palma, viewed as preparation for an offensive to retake Mocmboa da Praia.