BERLIN — Islamist fighters affiliated with ISIS have left a Mozambican wildlife reserve following a series of deadly attacks that claimed the lives of at least 10 people, including two wildlife rangers, according to the head of the country’s National Administration of Conservation Areas.

“We still have a challenging environment, but we have clear indications that the insurgents are moving out of the reserve,” Pejulo Calenga told local press last week.

The attacks on April 29 targeted tourism and conservation facilities in northern Mozambique’s Niassa Special Reserve, forcing their closure as units of the Mozambican army deployed. Two rangers working with the Niassa Carnivore Project (NCP) remain missing.

More than 30 Islamist fighters attacked the Mariri Environmental and Skills Training Centre, which houses the NCP, a conservation group that’s worked inside the reserve for more than 20 years. Most of the group’s staff had already been evacuated following a separate attack on a hunting safari camp 10 days earlier, but a contingent of rangers and Mozambican soldiers were still there when the rebels arrived.

In an email to Mongabay, Colleen Begg, the NCP director, said she wasn’t sure when project staff would be able to return to work.

“It seems like the insurgents have withdrawn from the Niassa Province portion of Niassa Reserve, but it is not known whether they are still in the eastern sections of Niassa Reserve across the Lugenda River in Cabo Delgado [province], or whether they intend to return,” she wrote.

The fighters are members of an insurgency that’s already claimed thousands of lives in northern Mozambique, mostly in the gas-rich western province of Cabo Delgado. Rooted in local political and religious dynamics, the group has ties to the Islamist group ISIS and goes by the name “Islamic State Mozambique.”

The attacks have been a troubling development for Niassa Special Reserve and those who live or work in it. At more than 42,000 square kilometers (16,200 square miles), an area bigger than Switzerland, the reserve is the largest protected area in Mozambique.

“It holds the most wildlife in Mozambique, it holds one of the seven largest lion populations left on the planet, it holds 350 of the 7,000 wild dogs [left], lots of recovering elephant populations, recovering buffalo populations. It’s very, very precious,” Begg said.

The last time fighters with the group were active in the reserve was in 2021. According to Peter Bofin, a senior analyst with the conflict-monitoring group ACLED, it’s still unclear what prompted the latest attacks.

“It’s been shown that there has been recruitment in Niassa province in the past on a small scale, and also it’s a route into Tanzania — there are strong connections between the insurgency and support networks in Tanzania, some of which run through Niassa,” he said.

In 2021, fighters from the group moved out of Niassa relatively quickly, partly due to the presence of wildlife rangers and other tourism-related activities. Whether they will stay away for an extended period after the recent attacks remains to be seen.

“Some local sources have speculated that they may have been looking to move into Niassa to bring recruits from other countries in the region back into their strongholds,” Bofin said.

The April 29 attack forced many residents of the nearby town of Mbamba to flee into the reserve to hide.

“I think it’s very complex for [the] communities, because the enemy of the insurgents is the government, or government installations,” Begg said. “And for the communities, this is their land. This is their home. They just want peace. So I get the sense that for many of them, they don’t know which side to be on, and they’re just keeping a very low profile.”

In response to the attack, Mozambique deployed a contingent of soldiers to Niassa, which is outside the operating area of the more seasoned Rwandan troops stationed in Cabo Delgado. That province is home to a multibillion-dollar offshore LNG project run by French giant TotalEnergies, and has suffered years of delays due to insurgent activity.

At its peak, IS-Mozambique had somewhere around 3,000 fighters. After years of fighting that have involved troops from Russia, South Africa and Rwanda, their numbers have now fallen to 400 or so, according to Bofin.

On May 23, Mozambican President Daniel Chapo said the fighters had “disappeared” from Niassa.

But Begg told Mongabay there were still soldiers stationed in Mariri and it was not yet safe for her staff to return.

Niassa is a well-known destination for big-game hunters, who are served by one of 15 concession operators working in the reserve. In a separate area, the NCP runs community-oriented programs meant to build support for conservation, including through payments that are tied to species population goals and by compensating victims of human-wildlife conflict.

“We aren’t going anywhere and remain as committed as ever to Niassa’s wildlife and her people,” Begg said.

For now, the NCP has put most of its activities on hold in the eastern part of the reserve, but is continuing to run educational programs and carnivore conflict response in the west, farther away from the fighting. Begg told Mongabay the group is also working to provide trauma counseling for rangers who were involved in combat, as well as support for the families of those who were killed, wounded, or are still missing.

“This is a new reality,” she said.

Banner image: Lions in Mozambique. Image by Judy Gallagher via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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