Mozambique: Shelter, food priorities to assist Cabo Delgado displaced – PM

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Mozambique: Shelter, food priorities to assist Cabo Delgado displaced – PM

8:40 CAT | 04 Mar 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Voz de Cabo Delgado]

The Mozambican prime minister on Monday pointed to food and shelter as the priorities in assisting the displaced people resulting from the new wave of attacks in the south of Cabo Delgado province.

“Right now, the priority is to accommodate people. That’s what’s being done. It was a very big exercise, in one go, to receive people. Some people are in schools, others in tents, but we have to give them something to eat,” said Adriano Maleiane, speaking to the media in Maputo after a meeting with Mozambican athletes.

At issue is a new wave of attacks towards the south of Cabo Delgado, incursions that, for some weeks now, have forced thousands of people to leave their villages, mainly in Chiùre, fleeing towards the headquarters of that district and Erati, in Nampula, a neighbouring province of Cabo Delgado.

Official figures indicate that the new wave of attacks as a result of rebel movements has forced 67,321 people to flee their homelands, attacks explained by the Mozambican executive as the result of the “movement of small groups of terrorists” who left their camps in the south of Cabo Delgado, after a period of relative stability.

The province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community ( SADC), liberating districts near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region.

The conflict has already displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

Source: Lusa