Mozambique: UN sees “opportunity to completely change the situation” in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: UN sees “opportunity to completely change the situation” in Cabo Delgado

12:52 CAT | 09 Mar 2020

Photo: TVM

The United Nations (UN) coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulard, said on Friday that there was an “opportunity to completely change the situation in Cabo Delgado”, through “a joint effort” in the cyclone and armed violence-affected province.

“We need a lot more resources, because it is very important to invest now in humanitarian aid and development in Cabo Delgado. It is a priority that all authorities at the highest level in Mozambique must take into account,” Kaulard told Lusa.

The UN resident coordinator added that “there is an opportunity to completely change the situation in Cabo Delgado”, through “a joint effort to develop, create jobs and use the opportunities that exist in Cabo Delgado”, in an allusion to natural gas projects.

For Myrta Kaulard, this opportunity may be seized if there is a rapid contribution from all partners in the country to reinforce humanitarian aid, one year after the destruction caused by Cyclone Kenneth and two and a half years after the beginning of attacks by armed groups against villages.

Support for the population in the region forms part of the US$120 million that the UN system “urgently” needs, she said, to maintain support for around one million people in Mozambique, including cyclone victims in the centre of the country and drought in the south.

The number of UN beneficiaries in Cabo Delgado – around 150,000 persons – coincides with the total that the Mozambican government says have already been affected in some way by armed violence, whether by the death of family members, injury, loss of property or forced abandonment of their land and homes.

The UN works in conjunction with other organisations and delivers food aid and health services, drinking water, sanitation, social protection and education.

Asked whether it made sense to talk about increased humanitarian aid when attacks by armed groups with fatalities and destroyed villages were still ongoing, Myrta Kaulard noted that there were safe zones.

“At the moment there is security at the districts headquarters [villages], and it is very important to preserve this,” she said.

“Many people are in the [district village] headquarters and this is where we can help people,” she explained, investing in “development of the humanitarian side” in response to the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado.

Cabo Delgado province has been the target of attacks by armed groups that international organisations classify as a terrorist threat and which have, in two and a half years, already killed at least 350 people, in addition to 156,400 people affected by loss of property or forced to abandon home and land in search of safety.

LUSA

Source: Lusa