REFLEXIVE PEACE PRACTICE (RPP) PROJECT

Cabo Delgado registered its most significant escalation in several weeks: insurgents clashed with government forces in Tapara village, Quissanga district, on 29 July, the first such confrontation in that district in over a year while fighting that has continued around the contested Catupa base in Macomia district since June has now spread onto the N380 and R698 roads and into gold-mining areas, prompting Gemfields' Cabo Delgado joint venture to seek a buyer for its licences and pushing TotalEnergies and Sumitomo to quietly withdraw from the unrelated but symbolically important Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower project. A UN OCHA report released on 28 July recorded 73 security incidents in June alone, with 10 civilians killed and 72 abducted. Against this, an Institute for Security Studies briefing on 28 July highlighted the first genuine, if still informal, public nudges toward dialogue with the insurgency from within Frelimo and allied think tanks. Mozambique also found itself drawn into an unrelated international incident when a Mozambique-flagged LPG tanker was attacked in Iranian waters despite the vessel never having been legitimately registered in the country. This combination of a real (if still contained) security deterioration, alongside continued regional and economic diplomacy, justifies a score of 3, at the more fragile end of the moderate range.