The waves of armed groups in southern…

The waves of armed groups in southern Africa have disrupted both trade and day-to-day production throughout the area.

Two groups, the Jere under Zwangendaba and the Ndwandwe (both later known as Ngoni) under Soshangane, sweep through Mozambique.

Zwangendaba’s group continues north across the Zambezi, settling to the west of contemporary Mozambique, but Soshangane’s group crosses the Limpopo into the southern part of the country.

Soshangane, a general of the Zulu King Shaka, had broken away from Shaka's hegemony and carved out a Nguni empire of conquest (Gasa or Gaza) in what is now modern-day Mozambique.

Allied with the rival Ndwandwe in 1819, Soshagane had fled after defeat by Shaka.

He has moved north into Mozambique, absorbing or conquering numerous followers.

To liquidate his rival, Shaka in 1828 sends a punitive expedition under the command of Dingane and Mhlangana, but the army suffers great hardship because of hunger and malaria, and Soshangane has no difficulty, towards the end of 1828, in driving them off.