Mozambicans who fled the country must be called “displaced” not “refugees” – Mozambique sends Foreign Minister to Malawi

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Mozambicans who fled the country must be called “displaced” not “refugees” – Mozambique sends Foreign Minister to Malawi

8:21 CAT | 11 Feb 2016

Al Jazeera / UNHCR / Staff from UN's refugee agency register new arrivals in Kapise in an article by Al Jazeera on January 23 2016 reporting 3,500 Mozambicans.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Oldemiro Baloi, is starting a four-day working visit to the Republic of Malawi today, the vanguard of a high-level mission to address the approximately 4,000 Mozambicans displaced to Malawi by unrest at home.

The minister’s visit will include meetings with his Malawian counterpart and the president, and he will also visit the camp at Kapesi where the Mozambicans are housed.

The Mozambican government said on Friday that it was preparing for the return of the 4,000 Mozambicans in Malawi, allegedly fleeing the political and military unrest in central Mozambique.

“The government’s task is, initially, to establish the identify and location of the approximately 4,000 people, and then assist them,” a Mozambican diplomatic source told Lusa, stressing that terminology is important and that the people in this case are “displaced”, and not refugees.

The same day, the High Commissioner of Mozambique in Malawi, Jorge Gune, told Radio Mozambique that a temporary reception centre had been set up in the border district of Zóbuè in Tete province.

The Council of Ministers decided on Tuesday to send a high-level mission to monitor the situation in Malawi, after expressing reservations as to the circumstances in which these people had come to be in the neighbouring country.

In late January, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa that his government was aware of the situation, while saying that the people crossing the border in that area should not be termed refugees.

According to Ana, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, the Mozambican government mission will go to Malawi next week.

“I also anticipate that the president himself has expressed an interest in visiting them, to monitor the situation, demonstrating the level of concern within the government of Mozambique,” Comoana said.

Speaking to Lusa in an interview published late January, the administrator of Mwanza district in Malawi said that the situation of the Mozambicans there had worsened substantially since December.

Source: Angop / Lusa