Renamo’s base in Maringue fell earlier this week, raising fears of a return to civil war.

Mozambican troops on Monday, October 28, 2013, seized a second military base from the former Mozambican National Resistance Army, Renamo rebels, the South African Press Association, SAPA, said. Presidential Spokesman, Edson Macuacua, said the latest raid occurred in Maringue in central Mozambique.

It was the second attack in just over a week on a base of the former rebel movement that transformed into an opposition party. The army on October 21, 2013, captured Renamo’s main Sathundjira bush camp in the mountains of central Gorongosa. Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, survived the attack and later cancelled a 1992 peace deal that ended 16 years of civil war that started soon after independence from Portugal in 1975.

In an apparent tit-for-tat move, gunmen on October 22, 2013, attacked a police station in Maringue District near Renamo’s fallen base camp in apparent retaliation, with no casualties reported. Meanwhile, Renamo on October 28, 2013, announced that its Head of Mobilisation, Armindo Milaco, died of wounds sustained after Mozambican Armed Forces, FADM troops stormed the camp at Satunjira. Milaco was also a Member of Parliament.

In a commentary yesterday, October 30, 2013, The Herald newspaper of Zimbabwe warned that the resumption of hostilities between the Mozambican army and Renamo was the re-ignition of a conflict that might once again destabilise the region. As member of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, SADC, Mozambique shares borders with seven of the 14 countries and is also a regional transport hub.

Since the end of the civil war in 1992, Mozambique and the region have enjoyed peace and stability. SADC has grown from strength to strength in terms of fostering regional development and integration in recent years, owing to the largely peaceful environment, the paper pointed out.