Several dozen people have been beheaded in northern Mozambique in recent days by jihadists.
According to Emmanuel Macron, more than 50 people have lost their lives.
Villages have been looted and set on fire and women kidnapped.
Europe 1 takes stock of the situation in this East African country.
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In recent days, jihadists have massacred dozens of people in Mozambique, a country in eastern Africa.
The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron reacted strongly to these actions.
Europe 1 takes stock of what we know.
Decapitated men and adolescents and looted villages
Dozens of people have lost their lives in massacres in northern Mozambique in recent days.
On Wednesday November 4, AFP reported the discovery the previous Monday of the mutilated bodies of at least five adults and fifteen adolescents in a forest in Muidumbe district.
In a tweet published this Wednesday, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron for his part indicated that "more than 50 people have been beheaded, women kidnapped, villages looted and then set on fire".
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The jihadists arrived in this area, near the Tanzanian border, during an initiation ceremony attended by men and teenagers.
This rite is denounced by the jihadists, for whom it must be punished with the death penalty.
The dozens of men and adolescents who participated in the ceremony were therefore gathered on the football field, to be beheaded and then dismembered with machetes.
The jihadists then looted homes before setting them on fire.
They left, kidnapping the women and young girls.
A group of jihadists spreading terror in the region
The jihadists, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, have been active for three years in the Cabo Delgado region.
They attack villages and villagers with the aim of sowing terror and attempting to establish a caliphate there.
Most of the time, however, Islamist fighters remain hidden in the forests, but they came out at the beginning of the month to get supplies by looting the local farming communities, as usual.
In April, they had already beheaded about fifty young people who refused to join their ranks.
According to an NGO based in the United States, this new branch of IS has killed at least two thousand people and caused the displacement of more than 400,000 people since 2017. Faced with these fighters, the Mozambican army seems powerless.
It seems to have launched a fairly large-scale operation against the rear bases of this movement. But it is progressing very slowly due to difficulties in accessing these areas.
Emmanuel Macron criticizes "barbarians"
In his tweet, Emmanuel Macron denounced the action of "barbarians" who "hijack a religion of peace to sow terror".
"Islamist terrorism is an international threat which calls for an international response", he concluded.