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2021-05-26 Africa Subsaharan
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Mozambique: Mozambicans Show Generosity to Those Fleeing Violence As Food Scarcity Looms
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[All Africa] Attacks by jihadists in the north of Mozambique have terrorised the population, who have been forced to flee the violence. Many Mozambicans have opened their homes to accommodate the displaced, but host families are already struggling with their own precarious food situation, according to humanitarian workers on the ground.
"Because of the drought, it's not looking good for the three northern provinces, so the economic pressure on the host community is increasing," said Pierre Lucas, the World Food Programme's assistant director in Mozambique.
"This is why in addition to 750,000 internally displaced people, the local population is also at risk of food insecurity and the numbers are increasing."
Since October 2017, terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique have caused 2,500 deaths, according to the United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
, resulting in more than 700,000 displaced people.
The last major attack occurred on 24 March in Palma, near Afungi, where French energy giant Total is building its largest gas investment on the African continent.
While there were "dozens" but no confirmed body counts after the attack, the International Organization on Migration estimates at least 50,000 people fled from Palma. Many are still in hiding and remain unreachable.
The massacres in Palma pushed the displaced into urban areas where people have very little themselves, but they continue to help their fellow Mozambicans in true solidarity, Sylvie Kaczmarczyk, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told RFI in Pemba.
"There are food needs, even for the people living there for the past year - it's still a question of getting food daily," said Kaczmarczky. "It's very impressive that the situation is not getting tense."
But that's exactly what the WFP's Lucas fears. "This is why we and other partners are looking at these hosting communities and how we design our programme," he said. "The province already had the highest rate for moderate and severe food insecurity."
And while food and space is tight in urban areas, those who have moved to internally displaced people's (IDP) camps are truly in need - there are no shelters, running water is an hour's walk away and there are no services in place.
"In host communities, IDPs don't have job opportunities, but they have a roof and food," said La Belle Francesca Fontanini, Senior External Relations for UNHCR.
"For those living in IDP camps there is nothing - no water, no medicine, many people sick after walking for 10 days or living in the bush, and there are many cases of malnutrition. They need a shelter and they are sleeping under the sky without a sleeping mat," she added.
"In the camp, displaced people want a life. What they have there is not a life," said MSF's Kaczmarczky.
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Posted by Fred 2021-05-26 00:00||
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File under: al-Shabaab (IS-Mozambique)
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