Mozambique: Red Cross questions lists of aid recipients in Pemba neighbourhoods

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Mozambique: Red Cross questions lists of aid recipients in Pemba neighbourhoods

6:58 CAT | 08 Jun 2021

FILE - Illustrative photo. [File photo: Lusa]

The delegate of the Mozambique Red Cross in Cabo Delgado, André Nhatabe, on Tuesday called on neighbourhood chiefs to stop drawing up lists of beneficiaries of food aid, whose origin and need the relief organisation cannot assess.

“Who drew up the list? We want them to let the Red Cross do its business”, with surveys in the field, because the organisation “helps people in a transparent way”, he said in an interview with Lusa.

“When we make it known that we are going to work in a neighbourhood – for example, Paquitequete – we are not asking for lists. We are communicating that we are going there,” and the Red Cross has “the capacity to draw up lists” of those who really need aid, he said.

Nhatabe called on neighbourhood secretaries to present the needs of displaced people to the Red Cross when the organisation’s volunteers are surveying on the ground, rather than handing over pre-drafted lists.

Also read: Mozambique: Red Cross calls for ‘more respect for human rights’ in Cabo Delgado, promises more training

Reports of diversion of food aid by local leaders are frequent among displaced people, some of whom have complained to Lusa in recent months that they were included in supposed lists but never received support.

Also read: There is corruption in the distribution of humanitarian aid in Cabo Delgado – DW

The delegate of the Mozambique Red Cross in Cabo Delgado classifies the situation as one “challenge” among several, but believes that, despite the setbacks, the time should be to mobilise volunteers to support the displaced in a transparent and impartial way.

“We will fight and save lives, but observing our humanitarian principles, because only in this way will we show that the Red Cross is neutral and impartial” and that it “wants to help people according to the gravity and vulnerability” of each one, he summarised.

The Mozambique Red Cross has 126 volunteers in five districts of southern Cabo Delgado: Chiúre, Montepuez, Mecufi, Pemba and Metuge.

Since January, the organisation has provided food aid to around 300 families in Cabo Delgado: 250 in the Paquitequete district and 50 in the Natite district of Pemba city.

These are displaced persons who escaped armed attacks by insurgents in the north of the province and who receive a basic food basket for one month: 25 kilos of rice, an equal amount of maize flour, five litres of oil, three kilos of sugar, three kilos of beans and half a kilo of salt.

In the same period, the organisation offered materials for housing construction to 1,010 families of displaced people in the districts of Metuge and Montepuez.

In this case, each ‘kit’ delivered to families includes zinc sheets, nails, wire, hammer, pliers and a mosquito net.

The work of the Mozambican Red Cross in Cabo Delgado also includes awareness-raising activities for displaced people to adopt measures to prevent Covid-19.

Armed groups have terrorised the province since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has led to more than 2,800 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and 714,000 displaced people, according to the Mozambican government.

An attack on Palma, near the gas project under construction, on 24 March caused dozens of deaths and injuries, with no official balance announced.

The Mozambican authorities regained control of the town, but shootings have continued and the attack led oil company Total to abandon the site of the LNG project, which was due to start production in 2024 and on which many of Mozambique’s expectations for economic growth in the next decade are anchored.

Source: Lusa