The Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the two million people in need of support in northern Mozambique due to insecurity and terrorism, has secured up to September 33% of the US$513 million needed for 2023, according to official figures.
According to a report with data up to the end of September, released on Tuesday by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “at least two million people” need humanitarian support and protection in the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa, “due to the impact of armed conflict, violence and insecurity” in the northern region.
It adds that the HRP for 2023, valued at US$513 million (€478 million), plans to reach 1.6 million people through 67 humanitarian organisations on the ground – including seven United Nations agencies – a quarter of which are Mozambican Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
“Between January and September, approximately 1.5 million people were supported with some kind of humanitarian assistance,” it reads.
It notes that at the end of September 2023 the HRP was only 33% funded, having received US$167.6 million (€156.4 million), which limits the work of organisations on the ground.
It adds that support for food security and livelihoods is the area with the highest level of achievement (114 %) as of 30 September, reaching 1.4 million people, more than initially planned. However, “there is a considerable gap between food aid and livelihood interventions”.
“Due to underfunding,” only one in ten people received livelihood support from January to September.
The United States, with US$92.3 million (€86.1 million), the European Union, with US$20.4 million (€19 million), Japan, with US$9.4 million (€8.8 million), and Germany, with US$9.2 million (€8.5 million), are the main donors to the HRP, with the Mozambican state contributing US$7.4 million (€6.9 million).
The district of Mocímboa da Praia was the first target of the terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, on 5 October 2017. The town of Mocímboa da Praia was even used as rebel headquarters for just over a year, until it was reclaimed in August 2021 by the joint action of Mozambican and Rwandan government forces.
In September, Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, recognised that terrorism, which has been affecting the province of Cabo Delgado for six years, was a “serious new threat to peace”, but stressed that it was not a religious conflict.
Last August, the Mozambique armed forces announced that they had shot several of the group’s leaders, including the leader, Mozambican Bonomade Omar.
“The terrorists are no longer in the villages, we have dismantled their main bases and they have started to act defensively and in small groups, carrying out small sporadic attacks to loot food from the public and perpetuate terror. With the improvement in order and tranquillity, the public has been returning en masse to their areas of origin, resuming normal life,” the Mozambican president said at the end of September.
Since 2017, the conflict in northern Mozambique has displaced more than a million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.
In Cabo Delgado province, the Mozambique armed forces have been fighting terrorism since July 2021, with support from Rwanda and the SADC mission.
