Mozambique: About 60 schools reopen following terrorist incursion in Chiúre – AIM

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Mozambique: About 60 schools reopen following terrorist incursion in Chiúre – AIM

11:11 CAT | 14 Aug 2025

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

The Mozambican education authorities have announced that about 60 schools out of a total of 87 that had closed as a result of terrorist attacks in Chiúre district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, have reopened.

According to António Sebastião, head of the Administration and Planning Department at the Provincial Education, Youth and Technology Services, who was speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the schools were reopened as result of “the gradual improvement in security conditions in the communities concerned.”

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the escalating attacks carried out by terrorists in Chiure, over the last month, forced the displacement of about 60,000 people, corresponding to over 13,000 households.

In the same incursion, at least 18 members of the peasant militia known as the Naparamas were killed.

“Over 69,000 of the 72,000 students previously affected by insecurity have returned to their villages and are currently taking their final quarterly tests. At the moment, the administrative posts are calm, and some schools are already conducting the assessments that were previously scheduled for last week”, said Sebastiao.

He added “we only have 20,874 students who are not attending classes, while the rest are already in school benefiting from the lessons.”

According to Sebastião, the local government is working in order to ensure that the 27 schools that remain closed may be reopened very soon.

“There is already a guideline that the sector has agreed with school managers to encourage students to return to school, as well as to encourage teachers”, he said.

He also revealed that in the current school year, a total of 100,651 students were enrolled in Chiúre district, of whom 25 per cent are still displaced.

Since 2017, violent extremist attacks in Cabo Delgado have killed at least 4,500 people and displaced over one million. Almost 5,000 small businesses have been destroyed, leaving communities without livelihoods. Youth unemployment currently stands at 25 per cent in the province, with 35 per cent of young women neither employed nor enrolled in education or training.

Source: AIM