Mozambique: Number of IDPs arriving in Pemba each day is falling – Lusa

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Mozambique: Number of IDPs arriving in Pemba each day is falling – Lusa

6:59 CAT | 28 Oct 2020

Photo: DW

The daily number of displaced people arriving on Paquitequete beach in Pemba this week, fleeing armed violence, has halved, local sources told Lusa on Wednesday.

Of the 1,000 or so displaced people who were arriving by boat on Paquitequete beach each day, the number has fallen to less than 500 since Monday, said Abudo Manana, an activist with the Kuendeleya association, one of the entities improvising emergency humanitarian aid.

At the moment the boats carry more goods because there is nobody left in those villages, and the population reports that the incursions of terrorists have also been reduced, he said.

According to Abudo Manana, the number of boats arriving on the beach is still between five and 20, mostly carrying children and women, who arrive hungry and dehydrated.

“Among the 374 people who arrived yesterday [Tuesday], for example, 12 were seriously ill, with diarrhoea, vomiting and malaria,” Abudo added, noting that an average of more than 3,000 meals a day is distributed at lunch alone.

“Today is calm, so far four boats have arrived with approximately 350 people,” Hadassa Nazaré, a social activist with the Mozambique Activist Movement (MAM), told Lusa, while she was distributing food on Paquitequete beach.

The new wave of some 10,000 displaced people travelling in rickety boats to Pemba was unleashed on 16 October, following renewed attacks by armed rebels in northern Cabo Delgado province.

On Tuesday, Pemba municipality said that there was no longer room to receive more displaced people from the north.

According to the mayor, Florete Simba Motarua, Pemba had over 204,000 inhabitants, according to the latest general population census, in 2017, but now there are over 300,000.

Cabo Delgado province, in the north of Mozambique, has been the scene of armed attacks for three years by forces classified as terrorists.

There are different estimates for the number of deaths, ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 victims.

Source: Lusa