In a “War Communiqué” in which it calls on “all French and Portuguese investors to immediately abandon Cabinda”, FLEC-FAC claims that, on Monday morning, near the village of Tando-Maselelee Nviedi, in the Belize region, the FAC “launched several attacks with heavy weapons against positions of the Angolan occupying forces FAA [Angolan Armed Forces]”.
According to the note, “24 Angolan soldiers and eight military officers of the FAA died during the fighting and 11 [were] injured (...). Thousands of people have fled to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo since the fighting began on Monday morning.
The document, signed by the head of the FAC Special Forces, Lieutenant General João Cruz Mavinga Lúcifer, highlights that, after President João Lourenço's interview with the magazine Jeune Afrique, “the FAC decided to intensify military action throughout the territory of Cabinda”.
In that interview, the head of state stated that the security situation in the oil province of Cabinda is stable and that the FLEC-FAC does not pose any threat to Angolan territory.
According to the statement, the FAC “calls on all French and Portuguese investors to immediately abandon Cabinda”.
“The FLEC/FAC Military High Command recalls that the entire area of Cabinda is a territory in a state of war, and that the FLEC-FAC upholds its legitimate duty to protect the Cabindan population against the Angolan occupation forces”, the document reads. document.
For several years, FLEC/FAC has been demanding the independence of the territory of Cabinda, the province from which a large part of the country's oil comes, citing the Treaty of Simulambuco of 1885, which designates that part of the territory as a Portuguese protectorate.
Lusa tried to contact the Ministry of Defence, but without success.
