October marks the eighth year since the armed insurgency in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province, with attacks occurring on a “near-daily basis” as terrorism continues to pose a serious threat to local communities.

Despite responding almost exclusively with a military approach, deploying state forces, private military companies, and foreign troops to Cabo Delgado, the government has not succeeded in neutralising the threat, writes Borges Nhamirre, a consultant at the Institute for Security Studies.

Nhamirre said the primary cause of the failure in combating the insurgency is the absence of a “holistic strategy” that addresses the root causes of the conflict, saying while supported by Islamic State, the Cabo Delgado insurgency is driven largely by local factors, “including social, political, and economic exclusion by the central government in Maputo”.