Mozambique: Students protest against scholarship agreement breach – Photos

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Mozambique: Students protest against scholarship agreement breach – Photos

9:49 CAT | 06 Feb 2024

This sign reads: 'Do not Kill our Dreams'. [Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/Lusa]

Nearly 40 Mozambican students have been camped outside the Instituto de Bolsas de Estudo (Scholarship Institute – IBE) for two days, protesting against the violation of the agreement that provided for the government to fund their scholarships in Brazil.

“The IBE has an agreement with the university where we were accepted, and there are a number of clauses that provide for the IBE to fund our stay in Brazil. But now the IBE is saying that they are not responsible for us,” Margarida Nipatyhi, a 20-year-old student, told Lusa, among dozens of other scholarship holders who decided to camp outside the Instituto Bolsas de Estudos in Maputo.

In total, they are a group of 36 Mozambican students who should already be in Brazil to study at the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB) under a technical cooperation agreement between the institution and the Mozambican Scholarship Institute.

For the last 48 hours, the group has been camped outside the IBE, demanding a solution, in inhumane conditions and at the mercy of people of goodwill, just a few metres from Ponta Vermelha, the official residence of the President of the Republic.

“Yesterday it rained, and we hid under these trees. We got wet and didn’t bathe. It was only today that we managed to have the solidarity of the police, who opened up a space for us to bathe at the police station,” said Margarida Nipatyhi.

‘Have nowhere to go’

Sudentsprotest.wewanttostudy.lusa_ — *The sign reads: ‘We want to Study? [Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/Lusa]*

Among the group, there are at least 17 students who come from outside the capital and were already in Maputo when the IBE announced that it had no funds to pay for the students’ plane tickets to Brazil due to budgetary constraints.

“I, for example, have nowhere to go. I sold my house in Niassa province to pay for my studies, and in Maputo, I was living with a friend. I no longer have anywhere to go, and I’m not leaving until I hear something about my journey,” Cláudio Luis, a 25-year-old student, told Lusa.

At a press conference on Monday, the IBE’s director-general, Carla Caomba, claimed that she had never promised to cover the students’ expenses, although the agreement, signed by her in June 2021, had this clause.

In the agreement to which Lusa had access, the Mozambican Scholarship Institute assumes responsibility for providing airline tickets to Brazil for the students, as well as monthly financial aid for each one, which varies between 175 and 200 dollars (between 163 and 186 euros).