Mozambique: IOM donates pickup trucks to police – AIM report

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Mozambique: IOM donates pickup trucks to police – AIM report

10:15 CAT | 30 Nov 2021

Photo: IOM Mozambique

The United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has donated six Mahindra pickup trucks to the Mozambican police to strengthen the relationship between the police and the local communities in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

Islamist terrorism has caused enormous economic damage and human misery and driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in the province. According to the latest figures from IOM, in September there were 744,949 internally displaced people in Cabo Delgado.

Read: Mozambique: Community Security Councils are reactivated in Cabo Delgado – DW

However, since then the Mozambican defence and security forces, along with their allies from the Southern Africa Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) and Rwanda have continued to make progress in returning security to areas affected by terrorist attacks. As a result, the authorities are now restoring basic services and people are returning home.

According to the IOM Mozambique chief of mission, Laura Tomm-Bonde, this has prompted IOM to donate the six vehicles “to ensure that migration flows are safe, orderly, and regular and that positive relations between communities and law enforcement contribute to a peaceful and resilient society”.

On formally receiving the vehicles, the General Commander of the Mozambican police, Bernardino Rafael, explained that “the vehicles will go to the southern districts of the province, where the community has taken refuge from the attacks”.

Read: IOM and the EU support the strengthening of community engagement and policing (CEP) in northern Mozambique

Mozambique has been a member of IOM since 2011 and the organisation has a head office in the capital city Maputo with four sub-offices. The work of IOM focuses on migration, health, protection and assisted voluntary return, migration research and emergency programming related to displacement in northern Mozambique, and the continued response to Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth which struck the country in March and April 2019.

IOM has been providing technical support and assistance to the Mozambican government since 1994 on migration management, health, disaster risk reduction and emergency response.

“The means we are receiving are coming to add value to the PRM’s approach in Cabo Delgado province. The vehicles will go to the southern district of the province, where the community has taken refuge from the attacks” H.E. Bernardino Rafael, General Commander of the PRM pic.twitter.com/Sumg6P4NLF

— IOM Mozambique (@IOM_Mozambique) November 27, 2021