The United Nations Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has disbursed a further 6.5 million dollars (410.8 million meticais) for humanitarian aid to Mozambique.
In a statement released this Wednesday, 6 September, CERF said that this support is included in the disbursement of 125 million dollars, the equivalent of 7.9 billion meticais, for humanitarian aid, particularly for refugees, in 14 countries in Africa (including Mozambique), Asia, the Middle East and South America.
According to data consulted by Lusa, CERF has two other funds under implementation in Mozambique for programmes to recover from the cyclones that affected the country in the first quarter, one for 9.9 million dollars (625.7 million meticais), allocated on 5 April, and another for 4.9 million dollars (310 million meticais), allocated on 15 December 2022 to support displaced people.
With the disbursement of these 125 million dollars to the 14 countries, CERF brings the total emergency fund support through its Underfunded Emergencies window to more than 270 million dollars (17.1 billion meticais) this year, “the largest annual amount ever allocated to the largest number of countries”, which, according to the institution, reflects a “vertiginous increase in humanitarian needs and the fact that regular donor funding is not keeping pace”.
The head of UN Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, who announced this disbursement, admitted that we are witnessing the “cruel reality” that “in many humanitarian operations”, support agencies are “working with very little funding at a time when people’s needs are forcing them to increase”.
“Thanks to the generosity of a wide range of donors, we can count on CERF to fill some of the gaps. As a result, lives are saved. But we need individual donors to step forward too – this is a fund of all and for all,” he said.
According to the UNHCR, which classifies Mozambique as one of the most affected countries in the world, two million Mozambicans are in critical need of support and 900,000 remain displaced due to violence caused by terrorist groups and the effects of cyclones.
“Mozambique hosts approximately 30,000 refugees and asylum seekers, while around 900,000 people remain internally displaced due to violence perpetrated by non-state armed groups and the devastating impact of the climate crisis – Mozambique being one of the most affected countries in the world,” reads the operational report from the end of July, launched on 25 August by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The document – in which the UNHCR also estimates funding needs for assistance operations in the country in 2023 at 47.5 million dollars (3 billion meticais) – adds that the double passage of tropical cyclone Freddy in February and March 2023, “a year after the devastating tropical cyclone Gombe”, affected “more than a million people, destroyed infrastructure and displaced around 184,000 people”.
According to the report, two million people in Mozambique are in “critical need of assistance and protection” and 834,304 are “internally displaced” in the north of the country “due to the ongoing conflict” – terrorist attacks mainly in Cabo Delgado over the last almost six years – of which 35 per cent live in resettlement sites and 65 per cent in host communities.
In addition, 79 per cent of the internally displaced are women and children, and 420,200 returnees have been registered, “many of them in situations similar to those of internally displaced people, with poor living conditions and lack of access to basic services”.
The UNHCR report adds that 41,668 internally displaced people are in this situation due to “climate-related problems following the impacts of extreme weather events”.
“UNHCR and partners work closely with a range of stakeholders, including the Government, to provide life-saving protection services and assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, displaced returnees, as well as host communities, while seizing opportunities to invest in and build resilience among communities and facilitate sustainable solutions to displacement. In recent months, around 420,000 people have returned to their areas of origin, many of which lack services and have precarious conditions.”
The High Commissioner also argued that all refugee return movements must take place in an informed, safe, voluntary and dignified manner.
