Mozambique mobilises resources for return of refugees in Malawi

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Mozambique mobilises resources for return of refugees in Malawi

3:29 CAT | 12 Jul 2016

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The Mozambican government is mobilising resources for the repatriation of over two thousand Mozambican refugees in Malawi, Director of the National Institute for Mozambican Communities Abroad, Junqueira Manhique, announced yesterday

“We are mobilising resources and people for the return,” Manhique told reporters at the Mozambican Diaspora Forum in Maputo on Monday.

Data cited by the Mozambique News Agency (AIM) indicates that 2,606 Mozambicans are refugees in Malawi, as against the 12,000 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cited several months ago.

Confrontations in Tete province in central Mozambique between Mozambican defence and security forces and the armed wing of Renamo, Mozambique’s largest opposition party, are said to be the main cause of the Mozambicans’ flight into Malawi.

Without giving details about the process, the director of the National Institute for Mozambican Communities Abroad, an agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said that the refugees would be home soon, and their reintegration was a government priority.

“It is difficult to predict time spans, given the extent to which this is a mobilisation of people,” Manhique said.

Of the total number of refugees, 1,832 are living in Luwani, a camp that last saw Mozambicans during the civil war. The remainder are in a camp at Kapise.

In April, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, announced that the two countries would create a joint commission to resolve the situation of Mozambican refugees in Malawi, and Mozambique, Malawi and UNHCR reached an understanding last week on an agreement concerning the repatriation of Mozambicans in neighbouring countries to be signed soon.

Mozambique has experienced a worsening of political violence in recent months, with clashes between Renamo and defence and security forces and mutual accusations of abduction and assassination of party members, and attacks on military and civilian targets in the centre of the country attributed by the authorities to the opposition’s armed wing.

In late May, the Mozambican government and Renamo resumed negotiations on the political and military crisis in Mozambique, the main opposition party having abandoned dialogue with the executive in late 2015 on the grounds of lack of progress.

The main opposition party refuses to accept the results of the general elections in 2014, claiming the right to govern in the six provinces where it claims victory in the poll.

Source: Lusa