Maputo — The Mozambican defence and security forces on Friday categorically denied that there had been any terrorist attack the previous night against the town of Mueda, or a second attack against Palma, both in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
Palma had been raided and trashed by islamist terrorists on 24 March. So a return to the scene of the crime might not have seemed implausible. But an attack against Mueda, which is the headquarters of the Northern Operational Theatre of the Mozambican defense forces, would have been an extremely serious blow.
Flimsily sourced stories about the supposed attack on Mueda were soon all over the more disreputable parts of the Portuguese media, and indeed in some unwary Mozambican news outlets.
But then something almost miraculous happened: some of those responsible for circulating the fake news apologized.
One was a South African, Jasmine Opperman, who calls herself an “analyst”. The Portuguese paper “Publico”, quoted her as mentioning “reports” of “an extremely violent attack with people beheaded and disemboweled”. The situation in Mueda “is out of control”, she claimed.
A few hours later she retracted everything she had earlier written. “Dear followers”, she wrote, “subsequent initial information (sic) shows no attack at Mueda. I sincerely apologise for my mistake. Rest assured of my commitment to share factual information”.
A similar climbdown came from a Mozambican journalist hostile to the government, and currently living in Portugal, Fernando Veloso.
Initially Veloso wrote: “They are attacking Mueda in Cabo Delgado. There’s no communication, no mobile phone network. There are beheaded and disemboweled people along the streets of Mueda. The environment is horrific. I am refusing to publish photos because they are truly shocking”.
The real reason Veloso did not publish photos is that there weren’t any, since nothing had happened in Mueda – as Veloso soon admitted. “The information I received from Mueda has just confirmed to me that it’s a fake”. This anonymous source apologized to Veloso “for having transmitted information from another source of his confidence”.
Later on Friday morning, the senior journalist in Cabo Delgado of Mozambique Television (TVM), Brito Simango, wrote “there’s no record of any attack or intensive gunfire in the towns of Palma and Mueda”. A Mozambican helicopter gunship overflew the area and landed at Mueda without mishap.
A military source confirmed to Simango that “there is no reason for panic”, although there were reports of “a group of 100 suspect people” gathered in some parts of the Mueda interior.
“All apparently calm”, was how Simango summarized the situation. It was, however, true that mobile phone communications in Mueda were down. This had nothing to do with terrorism but was due to a problem with the fibre-optic cable used by the phone companies. By Friday afternoon, communications had been restored.
Rumours about a possible attack against Mueda had sparked a wave of uneasiness among the residents on Thursday.
But the Mueda District Administrator, Aina Combo, quoted by Radio Mozambique, said on Friday that peace and tranquility has returned to Mueda and the residents are back to their normal activities.
“On Thursday we had a network failure which isolated Mueda from the rest of the province, but the situation is back to normal and everything is running smoothly,” Combo said. However, she warned that “disinformation is a very powerful weapon that public enemies can use to distract us, so that they can do whatever they feel like’.
The network signal for the country’s three mobile service operators went off the air shortly after 14.00 on Thursday. This may have been the immediate spark for the fears of an imminent attack.
It was found that the communications malfunction was caused by problems with the fibre optic cable. Teams were swiftly dispatched to Mueda to identify and repair the fault. On Friday they guaranteed that all the networks will soon be reconnected to the rest of the country.