By Manuel Mucari
MAPUTO, Sept 4 (Reuters) – At least three Americans were evacuated after suspected insurgents attacked a camp co-owned by soccer coach Carlos Queiroz in a wildlife reserve in northern Mozambique, a source familiar with the incident said on Friday.
Queiroz, who coaches Ghana’s national team, said he was awaiting information from military and security authorities to ascertain what had happened.
“From the images I have access to, it appears that the entire establishment has been burned down,” he told Reuters in a telephone call from Lisbon.
Queiroz said the area was currently off-limits due to the insecurity, and that he had no direct information from the site.
The Mozambican independent English-language digital publication Zitamar News first reported the incident late on Thursday, suggesting there had been some fatalities. Regional analyst Tertius Jacobs said he believed insurgents had abducted a number of civilians. None of the reports could be verified.
Mozambique has been battling an Islamic State-linked insurgency in the gas-rich northern province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, a conflict that has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique was aware of an attack on a hunting lodge close to the Niassa Special Reserve, near Cabo Delgado and one of Africa’s largest protected wilderness areas, but did not confirm whether any Americans were affected.
The source, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the camp had been burned but there were no confirmed fatalities. The source said the three Americans had been out hunting when the attack occurred, and that staff had fled and Mozambique’s military had responded.
The Mozambican government did not respond to a request for comment.
The State Department had warned its citizens not to travel to the Niassa Special Reserve for any reason, adding that terrorists had targeted upscale hunting lodges in and near the area and taken hostages.
Last year, in a similar attack in the Niassa Reserve, a tourist camp was destroyed and six people including four rangers were killed during skirmishes.
Big-game hunting in the reserve, which runs from May to November, often draws groups from the U.S.
Jacobs, an analyst at Focus Group, which monitors the insurgency, said the attack took place near Marangira village in Niassa province, and that insurgents had abducted several civilians and looted supplies before withdrawing towards Cabo Delgado.
He said available information corroborated reports that three Americans had been affected, but that casualty figures and the number of those abducted remained unverified.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf and Nilutpal Timsina;Additional reporting by Manuel Mucari and Costodio Cossa; Editing by Bate Felix and Kevin Liffey)
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