Mozambique (MNN) — At least 80,000 people – mostly Christians – have been driven from their homes as terrorist violence returns to northern Mozambique.
Despite relative calm last year and the disbursement of peacekeeping troops from Rwanda, Islamic State associates are once again ravaging the Cabo Delgado region. Over 70 kids are still missing following recent attacks; some fear the children are now in Islamic State training camps.
The same location made global headlines in spring 2021 when Islamist militants killed dozens of people in an attack on Palma.
(Graphic courtesy of VOM USA)
“There have been 11 churches burned in the last couple of weeks in northern Mozambique; you have pastors whose lives are being threatened,” Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA says.
Wars in Ukraine and Gaza overshadow Mozambique in the global headlines, leaving recent events largely unnoticed.
“You have terrorists stopping buses at checkpoints and going passenger by passenger [to ask,] ‘Are you a Christian or a Muslim?’ and executing those who are Christians and refuse to accept Islam on the spot,” Nettleton says.
“People being pulled off of buses and beheaded – that seems like that would get the world’s attention. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to have done so.”
Help persecuted Christians in Mozambique through VOM USA here. Most importantly, pray. “I hope our [readers] will pray for God’s protection, pray for encouragement, pray for that sense of calling to be so deep and so strong that they know exactly what the Lord is asking them to do,” Nettleton says.
“It would make a lot of sense from an earthly perspective to flee, to go someplace safer. Yet we know God is calling some of them to stay there.”
Header and story images courtesy of VOM USA.
