The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) warned this week of a “silent genocide” in Mozambique, where Islamic State jihadis are destroying churches, burning down villages, and beheading Christians – and then posting triumphant photos and videos of their atrocities online.
MEMRI has long specialized in posting and translating videos from the Middle East that have been ignored or suppressed by local and international media outlets. The Washington, DC-based Institute’s work frequently demonstrates that what Arab leaders say to domestic audiences is very different from what they tell foreign reporters.
In this case, ISIS terrorists in Mozambique have been giddily posting evidence of their attacks on Christians, but it took MEMRI to pull the gruesome social media posts together into a narrative about ethnic and religious cleansing.
It is no secret that Mozambique has a serious problem with jihadis. The United Nations sounded alarms last August that ISIS was gaining strength in Mozambique and was close to gaining “effective control” over a large swath of territory in West Africa and the Sahel.
“The African continent now accounts for almost half of terrorist acts worldwide, with central Sahel accounting for about 25% of such attacks,” U.N. counter-terrorism committee director Natalia Gherman warned the Security Council, almost exactly one year ago today.
Much of the terrorist violence was focused upon Cabo Delgado, a coastal province that came under sustained attack from insurgents in early 2021.
The attackers were affiliated with the Islamic State. They targeted Cabo Delgado because foreign companies had extensive natural gas operations there. The money Mozambique gains from selling its gas has created massive income disparities and resentment among the population, which the insurgents exploited to recruit their soldiers – including child soldiers who are barely more than toddlers.
The Biden administration quietly pumped $41 million a year into infrastructure and jobs programs in Cabo Delgado, ostensibly to dry up the pool of terrorist recruits by addressing the economic complaints of its residents. The program had no discernible effect on the growing strength of the Islamic State.
Mozambique exploded in violence after the October 2024 general election, which many young voters felt was rigged to keep the ruling Frelimo party in power after five decades.
The European Union and African organizations expressed concerns about the integrity of the election, but it was upheld in court, leaving Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo in office. Protests against the election continue, prompting allegations of police brutality when the government used force to disperse them. The ongoing unrest has proven useful to the ISIS insurgency, as well as ethnic militias with grievances against Frelimo.
MEMRI posted photos and videos over the past few weeks showing members of the Islamic State – Mozambique Province (ISMP) beheading “unbeliever” Christians in Cabo Delgado, burning the homes and churches of their victims, “liberating” Muslim prisoners from jails, and “preaching” their brand of Islam to villagers. Similar triumphalist videos of murder and arson against Christians were posted by ISMP in April.
ISMP also took credit for attacks with machine guns and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against Mozambican police and soldiers, plus Christian militia fighters in Cabo Delgado. The Islamic State jihadis described some of their targets as members of “infidel militias.”
In a video released on July 25 by the Islamic State’s “news agency” Amaq, an ISMP operative called on all of Mozambique’s Muslims to join the “jihad” and “move out of the land of nonbelief to the land of Islam.”
On the following day, an ISIS newsletter included an infographic highlighting the success of “harvest operations” to eliminate Christian populations over the past year in Mozambique, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“What we see in Africa today is a kind of silent genocide or silent, brutal, savage war that is occurring in the shadows and all too often ignored by the international community,” MEMRI Vice President Alberto Miguel Fernandez told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
“That jihadist groups are in a position to take over not one, not two, but several countries in Africa – take over the whole country or most of several countries – is dangerous,” he warned. “It’s very dangerous for the national security of the United States let alone the security of the poor people who are there – Christians or Muslims or whoever they are.”
Fernandez noted similar operations geared toward “eliminating Christian communities” are under way in the DRC. He said the jihadis give Muslims the choice to “join us or you, too, will face killing and annihilation,” while Christians are simply “targeted and destroyed.”
Fernandez criticized the United Nations for blandly reporting on killings and massive population displacements in Mozambique without noting that the most savage attacks are directed against Christians.
“It’s kind of easy to be vague like that. The fact that some of this and some of the worst of it is happening because of a deep anti-Christian animus, hatred of Christians, religiously-based hatred of Christians is something that the U.N. usually doesn’t like to talk about,” he said.
Fernandez gave the Trump administration credit for being “refreshingly” tough on jihadist terrorism, but noted the administration is focused more on the Middle East than Africa. He applauded President Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire in the recent scuffle between Rwanda and the DRC, however, noting that a prolonged conflict could have swelled the ranks of jihadis.
Fernandez said a resounding defeat for ISIS in Africa, like the one Trump delivered to ISIS in the Middle East when he eliminated founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, might help to break the Islamic State’s grip on West African populations.
“What we need to see is them to be utterly defeated in Africa, so people will say, people on the sidelines or people on defense will say, ‘Well obviously these people did not have the mandate of Allah, the mandate of God, they were losers, they lost.’ That’s what we need,” he said.
MEMRI’s account tracks with warnings issued by observers. Missionary Father Kwiriwi Fonseca told humanitarian charity Aid to the Church in Need in May that “many Christians are suffering” in Mozambique and large numbers of them have been displaced from their homes by terrorist violence.
“All the newly displaced mentioned having fled because of direct attacks on their villages, involving looting, arson, kidnappings, and selective murders,” Father Kwiriri said.
“The Diocese of Pemba, through the local Caritas, has been doing all it can, but we need to denounce this violence, because the people cannot continue to be punished in this way. The misery in Cabo Delgado cannot be overcome through the efforts of the diocese alone, which continues to rely on outside resources that arrive through Caritas,” he warned.
International Christian Concern (ICC) in June cited Mozambique as an urgent concern, along with the DRC and Nigeria.
“The Christian population of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique is suffering greatly from terrorist attacks carried out as part of an Islamist insurgency,” ICC said.
Another persecution watchdog group, Open Doors, noted that Islamic extremists are “targeting Christian places of worship, abducting religious leaders, and killing numerous believers.”
“The objective of these groups is to establish a strict Islamic state, and Christians are often targeted as symbols of resistance to this extremist ideology. In addition, Christians [are] often caught in the crossfire of the ongoing conflict between government forces and jihadist groups, making them even more vulnerable to violence and displacement,” Open Doors reported.
Open Doors further warned that Mozambique has “become a major hub for drug trafficking,” and the cartels view church youth workers as an obstacle to be removed, because they speak out against drug use and protect young people from organized crime recruiters.
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