Mozambique: 2,000 children to spend Children’s Day without their families – UNICEF

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Mozambique: 2,000 children to spend Children’s Day without their families – UNICEF

5:47 CAT | 31 May 2021

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

At least 2,000 minors will spend International Children’s Day, 1 June, without their families in northern Mozambique, due to the armed conflict in that region.

The number may be conservative. The armed violence in Cabo Delgado since 2017 has separated children from their families, said in an interview with Lusa, Claudio Julaia, emergency specialist for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Mozambique.

“The needs of these children are immense. They need food assistance and shelter”, as well as psychological support, he said on the occasion of the celebration of International Children’s Day.

Most of the 2,000 children are sheltered in the homes of displaced families with solidarity in reception centres, but according to UNICEF, it is not an “easy process”.

“What we have done is to identify, in reception centres or in the neighbourhoods, families who are willing to take in these children. We give these families training and additional assistance,” he said.

In total, according to Cláudio Julaia, there are at least 364,000 children amongst the around 700,000 displaced by the conflict, children who are spread across five provinces, namely Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Nampula, Zambézia and Sofala, in a figure described by UNICEF as “worrying”.

“Almost 90% of the displaced children are in Cabo Delgado, and many of these children live in the homes of relatives. It is worrying to see that the number has been increasing”, he said.

In addition to food assistance, UNICEF has been focusing on psychological support for the minors shaken by violence.

“At this moment, around 1,700 children have been assisted in terms of psycho-social support through an initiative called ‘friends of the children’. These are spaces where children have the opportunity to play and have access to recreation to help overcome the trauma,” he added.

The increase in the number of children in need of help in Cabo Delgado worries the organisation when UNICEF is warning of a $31 million (€25 million) budget shortfall for its operation.

“The funding situation is not good,” Julaia said, adding that the increase in the number of displaced people in recent months leaves the situation “more complex”.

“At this point, we have some resources to continue doing the assistance in Cabo Delgado, but naturally, if we don’t receive additional resources, we will reach a point where we won’t have the capacity to continue supporting the children”, he warned.

Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has led to more than 2,500 deaths according to the ACLED conflict registration project and 714,000 displaced people according to the Mozambican government.

The number of displaced persons increased with the attack on the village of Palma on 24 March, an incursion that caused dozens of deaths and wounded, with no official balance announced.

The Mozambican authorities announced they controlled the town. Still, that attack led oil company Total to abandon indefinitely the site of the enterprise that was scheduled to start production in 2024 and on which many of the expectations for economic growth in the next decade are anchored.

Source: Lusa