From Porto Amélia to the Shelter Port of Mozambique

We are in the middle of the dry season in Mozambique.

We wake up with another daya radiant. Clouds, just a cumulus caravan and stratocumulus devoid of moisture and whitening the sunny winter of this eastern African.

We walk along Marginal Avenue, through the north of the peninsula where Pemba sprawls.

The road curves under a sharp vertex of the coast, below a reef in the Mozambique Channel which there made the sea shallow and sandy.

We stop at the top of a rocky cliff. At that very moment, a group of fishermen lead their colorful canoes to the beach.

There, another party awaits them, equipped with buckets and bowls, receptacles for the fish and octopuses that the fishermen bring on board.

They are women in head scarves, with folkloric capulanas from the waist down.

There are also some young people in costumes with a little traditional, football team shirts, matching shorts and flip-flops.

That fishing transaction takes place on a daily basis so there is little to discuss. In a flash, buyers put the buckets and bowls on their heads and disappear into the heart of their lives.

Sellers take canoes to anchor on the other side of the bay.

We readjusted our gaze to a beach that the low tide was still discovering and that the sun was golden whenever it fell on it.

There, two boys competed in a match from goal to goal with a Champions final delivery.

Onward, a few small dhows glide over the emerald water, with a course similar to that of canoes.

We went down to the foot of the cliff. We found that, after all, a few buyers remained in its shadow.

A young mother with a sleeping baby on her chest.

And a man at her side who, to our amazement, unfurls an octopus with tentacles from head to toe.

We realized that fishing had not arrived for everyone.

In addition to this couple, three young people chirped, remelted. Intrigued as to where the muzugos, arrest them with shy smiles. They make it clear to us that they expected other fishermen to come ashore.

We returned to the top determined to extend the panoramic privilege. In the meantime, the traffic of pedestrians and boats crossing the shallow waters had increased.

Fishermen and boats in the section of Pemba inlet near Paquitequete.

More canoes and tiny dhows converged on the same natural anchorage, organized in front of the first wave of houses and coconut trees in the neighborhood of Paquitequete.

There we proceeded to discover Pemba.

It's Friday. About ten in the morning, the heat gets tight.

Even so, as soon as we reach the naked in the heart of the village we come face to face with three players fully equipped with the colors of their team: yellow jersey, bright purple shorts.

They prepare for a kind of local derby. The photographic time they allow us is short and does not entitle us to discounts.

More players arrive, some from the same team, others rivals, in any case, blessed by the Aqswa mosque that, behind them all, juts out above the houses.

The residents of Paquite, as the neighborhood is treated in order to shorten the hassle of calling it by its full name, are mostly Muslims.

As is the population of Pemba in general, without prejudice to the diocese and Catholic churches in the administrative heart of the capital of Cabo Delgado.

The area of ​​Pemba was already Muslim, counting more than half a millennium at the time of the pioneer passage of Vasco da Gama around these parts, in 1492, it is said that by islands of the Quirimbas archipelago.

She was a Muslim, with a strong Swahili influence and a speaker of the Kimuani dialect that almost half a millennium of Portuguese colonization never made disappear.

After all this time, the mosque of Paquite, Pemba and the people of northern Cabo Delgado find themselves afflicted with a jihadist madness (poorly) disguised as an Islamic faith.

Explanations from experts on African affairs say the problem began after Muslim leaders were radicalized by the teachings of the Salafi current, which is vigorous in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Now, Salafism and its teachings are contrary to Christianity, animism, Western values ​​and even a more balanced Islam.

It worsened after their return, when armed rebels instigated by them, invaded traditional mosques and threatened to kill believers if they did not adhere to the radical ideals they defend.

These insurgents faced resistance from moderate muftis and the general population to accept a Muslim faith and life subjected to Salafism.

At some point in this insurgent process, the Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of Tradition), a dissident faction, made its way in the region.

It was joined by elements that call themselves ISIS representatives, estimated to be Somalis, Tanzanians, Ugandans, Congolese and others.

As a practical terrorist result, since October 2017, attacks on police stations and other state entities, on indiscriminate churches, villages and towns have been repeated, increasingly destructive and bloodthirsty attacks.

They took place first in the city of Mocímboa da Praia and surrounding villages. Despite occasional and poorly coordinated military responses from the Mozambican police and armed forces, reinforced by others from South African and Russian private companies, the territory controlled by the dissidents has increased.

On March 24, 2021, Palma suffered the most devastating of attacks. This brutal attack caused an as-yet-to-be-determined number of victims, some foreigners. He left decapitated corpses in the streets, to be eaten by animals.

The attack on Palma put a brake on natural gas extraction operations from the offshore Rovuma field. It generated a new influx of refugees who tried to reach Pemba by all means.

At this time, Mozambican authorities closed mosques that they considered radicalized. Others remained open and moderate.

They contributed to the reception of around 700 refugees who continue to flock to Pemba by all means.

On foot, some after walking more than 100km with children and a few belongings on their backs. And disembarking from canoes, dhows and other overcrowded boats on the surrounding beaches.

The churches in the upper town of Pemba are now also covered reception centres, in the heart of improvised tent fields that increase day by day and reinforce the notion that, like the boats, Pemba has also exceeded its limits. .

Which is not surprising considering that, in normal times, the city is home to only 140 Mozambicans.

It is still hard for us to believe – let alone to understand and internalize – the whole atrocious scenario that we learned about from the successive bad news.

In July 2017, when, following Paquite, we ascended to discover the upper city, nothing in Pemba allowed us to imagine its current reality.

Under the dry heat intensified by the almost-sharp sun, we found that section of Pemba, overlooking Paquite, almost deserted, with a more than tranquil, sedative atmosphere.

The Maria Auxiliadora church remained closed, with no sign of the faithful, with a brownish façade outlining the blue sky.

One or another passerby passed in front of the Cathedral of São Paulo, without haste.

The provincial library was given over to the insinuating statue of Machel Machel, Marxist precursor and first president of the independence of Mozambique.

In the Pemba successor of colonial Porto Amélia, still full of Portuguese architectural and administrative legacy, only the sector surrounding Rua Comércio, adjacent to the port from which the goods (and now thousands of refugees) arrived, clashed with the apathy prevailing at the height of the city. .

Today, unlike then, victims of the economic collapse that accompanies the Covid 19 pandemic and the refugee crisis, shop owners say it makes less and less sense to keep them open.

Let's go back to the context why we traveled through the lands of Cabo Delgado, on the eve of the disgrace that would come.

In the afternoon, we walk along the Avenida Marginal in the opposite direction. We had lunch at a Pieter's Place.

Then, we walked along the immediate beach, to and fro, in search of the majestic baobab trees that insinuate themselves into the Mozambique Channel, as if beckoning to our Malagasy neighbors.

At sunset, we arrived at Wimbe beach.

The vast, white sand and the translucent waters of this seductive coastline made it the ultimate bathing resort in Pemba.

Luckily for a community of tourism entrepreneurs and the dissatisfaction of most of the people from Pernambuco who complain that, due to the fame of the beach, the cost of living in the city has become unaffordable.

At that time none of that mattered.

Wimbe was given over to the youthful frenzy that always precedes sunset here.

Teenagers competed in a fierce soccer match with the resident coconut forest as the estimated boundary of the field.

Others, younger, shared a long bathing ecstasy, diving and splashing in the waves that the cove's rounded gentle made.

Two or three of these bathers notice that we walk around with a camera.

"Look here, muzungo, look at us! “Thus, they guarantee our attention. In a flash, they flour and gild themselves with sand, like improvised mossiro masks.

In another, they generate a smiling human pile that almost slips through the lenses inside.

In July 2017, Pemba lived all this happiness and much more.

May God, whether Muslim, Christian or of any other faith, spare you.