Mozambique: Over 850,000 people internally displaced at end of 2023 – UNHCR

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Over 850,000 people internally displaced at end of 2023 – UNHCR

5:02 CAT | 26 Jan 2024

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

Mozambique had around 25,000 refugees and asylum seekers, and 850,599 people were still internally displaced, mainly due to attacks by terrorist groups, according to a UNHCR report consulted on Thursday by Lusa.

According to the most recent field report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with data up to the end of 2023, the “devastating impact of the climate crisis” has also contributed to this situation, “with Mozambique being one of the most adversely affected countries in the world”.

In addition to terrorist attacks, which have caused destruction, death and the flight of members of the public, especially in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, this balance reflects the “double landfall” of Tropical Cyclone Freddy in February and March, “ a year following the devastating Tropical Cyclone Gombe”, which affected more than a million people, destroyed infrastructure and displaced around 184,000 people.

“In the past months, 571,468* people have returned to their areas of origin,” reads the UNHCR report.

The UN agency adds that it is working together with partners on the ground and the Mozambican government to “ to provide lifesaving protection services and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers, IDPs, IDP returnees, as well as host communities while harnessing opportunities to invest in and build resilience among communities and facilitate sustainable solutions to displacement”.

UNHCR reports that “many” of the 571,468 people who have returned to their areas of origin by the end of the year “lack services and live in poor conditions”.

The actions on the ground are concentrated in the northern provinces of Zambézia, Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado and in Maputo Province.

Unhceroppres.unhcr_

For these support operations, the UNHCR budgeted funding needs of US$47.5 million (€43.6 million), but as of December 15, it had only secured US$24.2 million (€22.3 million), 51% of what it needed.

In December, as part of the monitoring and protection of displaced families, UNHCR staff interviewed 1,561 displaced and returnee families in 21 displacement sites and return sites in five districts of Cabo Delgado.

The province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State, which has led to a military response since July 2021, with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near gas projects.

The conflict has already displaced a million people, according to the UNHCR, and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

Source: Lusa