Since late 2017, Cabo Delgado province in the extreme North of Mozambique has become a stage for violent armed conflict. To explain the insurgency, several hypotheses emerged. Some focusing on internal factors, namely socio-economic tensions, and others on external aspects, such as the relationship with terrorist cells in East Africa or with the geopolitical control of the Mozambique Channel, as an important energy and drug trafficking corridor. In this contribution to the Security Series JoÆo Feij¢ emphasizes the importance of socio-economic asymmetries to explain the military tensions in Cabo Delgado. The author argues that inequality of access to jobs, income, benefits and compensation contradicts a discourse of economic integration and national unity. The recent reconfiguration of power relations between ethnolinguistic groups and the greater affirmation of the State in control of natural resources reinforces historical divisions and the alienation of young people on waithood. A change of the course will decide the success of the fight against insurgency.