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On June 15th, a Bat Hawk microlight aircraft crashed in Mozambique, during a routine patrol in the Cabo Delgado area.
The pilot, a South African military contractor for the company Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) was seriously injured in the crash, but survived.
“When communications with the aircraft were lost, an immediate recovery mission was launched to the position of the tracker beacon installed on the aircraft.
The wreck was easily located in very dense forest because of the beacon.
Recovery of the single occupant, the pilot, was effective. The very badly injured man was recovered with considerable skill.
The reason for the crash is not known, but it was not any form of enemy action.”
In April 2020, a Gazelle helicopter gunship crash-landed and was destroyed after being hit by enemy gunfire.
None of the crew were injured.
Cabo Delgado is an area that is heavily infested by Islamists, who carry out increasingly bloody attacks on civilians.
Recently, on June 16th there’s reports that the village of Koko outside of Macomia was attacked, and several houses were looted and destroyed. There are no reports of casualties.
The South African Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor told Parliament that the South African and Mozambican governments were discussing how South Africa could help Mozambique fight the insurgents.
Pretoria has not made any other comments on its supposed plans.
There is also a lot of unclarity regarding DAG’s operation and whether they are successful or not.
According to British outlet the Daily Telegraph, based on multiple unnamed sources, “this small band of elite sharpshooters have helped to turn the tide against an army of militants, who have been waging a shadow war in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province for more than two years.”
The Mozambican government in the southern capital, Maputo, recruited the help of Colonel Lionel Dyck, a veteran of the Rhodesian army.
In early April, Col. Dyck hired a small band of sharpshooters, many of them veterans of Angola’s civil war, and flew into Mozambique’s northern province with a few helicopters. Multiple sources have told the Telegraph that Col Dyck’s band were involved in a crucial battle for the port city of Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado province, on April 10.
“The local civilian population has suffered dreadfully at the hands of these insurgents who commit Isis-style beheading and dismemberment on hundreds of peaceful farming peasants,” Col. Dyck said.
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