The Mozambican Civil War () was a civil war fought in Mozambique from 1977 to 1992. Like many regional African conflicts during the late twentieth century, the Mozambican Civil War possessed local dynamics but was also exacerbated greatly by the polarizing effects of Cold War politics. The war was fought between Mozambique's ruling Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the anti-communist insurgent forces of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), and a number of smaller factions such as the PRM, UNAMO, COREMO, UNIPOMO, and FUMO. RENAMO opposed FRELIMO's attempts to establish a socialist one-party state, and was heavily backed by the anti-communist governments of Rhodesia and South Africa who supported them as a proxy to undermine FRELIMO support for militant nationalist organisations in their own countries. Over one million Mozambicans were killed in the fighting or starved due to interrupted food supplies; an additional five million were displaced across the region. The Mozambican Civil War destroyed much of Mozambique's critical rural infrastructure, including hospitals, rail lines, roads, and schools. FRELIMO's security forces and RENAMO insurgents were accused of committing numerous human rights abuses, including using child soldiers and salting a significant percentage of the countryside indiscriminately with land mines. Three neighboring states—Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Malawi—eventually deployed troops into Mozambique to defend their own vested economic interests against RENAMO attacks. The Mozambican Civil War ended in 1992, following the collapse of Soviet and South African support for FRELIMO and RENAMO, respectively. Direct peace talks began around 1990 with the mediation of the Mozambican Church Council and the Italian government; these culminated in the Rome General Peace Accords which formally ended hostilities. As a result of the Rome General Peace Accords, RENAMO units were demobilised or integrated into the Mozambican armed forces and the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) was formed to aid in postwar reconstruction. Tensions between RENAMO and FRELIMO flared again between 2013 and 2018, prompting the former to resume its insurgency and crumbling into pieces the long reproduced narrative of a successful reconciliation. This smaller second conflict ended with a peace treaty in 2019. Background Independence Portugal fought a long and bitter counter-insurgency conflict in its three primary African colonies—Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau—from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, when they finally received independence following the Carnation Revolution. In Mozambique, the armed struggle against colonial rule was spearheaded by the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which was initially formed