- Squatters have occupied land belonging to the Archdiocese of Nampula in Mozambique
- Affected sites include a seminary, a parish and a monastery
- A May 2025 court order for restitution and eviction had not been enforced
- Some church land nationalised after 1975 now hosts a university and a hospital
The Archdiocese of Nampula in Mozambique has denounced the illegal occupation of its land and the failure to enforce a court order to remove squatters, Club of Mozambique reported on September 5, 2025.
The occupied properties include the Mater Apostolorum Seminary, the Parish of São João Batista in Marrere and the Mater Dei Monastery. Squatters destroyed boundary walls, cut down cashew trees, damaged crops and carried out illegal logging and construction. A court order issued in May 2025 called for the land to be returned and the squatters evicted, but it had not been enforced.
Archbishop Inácio Saure described the occupation as an “attack on the rights of the Church and, above all, on the rights of the poor”. He said: “There is a stubborn refusal to vacate the land…There is an invisible hand linked to powerful people” encouraging the occupations. The report noted that after 1975 the government nationalised church properties, including land that now houses Rovuma University and Marrere General Hospital.
The archdiocese has won in court but still cannot use its land.
A court order is only as good as its enforcement, and the Nampula case shows how a church can win on paper and still lose the use of its land. Jamaican churches with large rural holdings should protect them with fences, regular use and good relations with neighbours, and should act quickly when encroachment starts, before crops, trees and buildings change the facts on the ground.
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