The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) predicts that by the end of this year, around half of the forced displacements worldwide will occur in Africa, with major humanitarian crises contributing to this reality.
“The African continent is facing one of its largest humanitarian crises in decades, with more than 71 million people forced to flee and abandon their homes by the end of 2025,” the organization stated in a report.
In Mozambique, the humanitarian situation is also critical, affected by conflicts in Cabo Delgado and natural disasters. Currently, 2.2 million people are in need of assistance, with support being provided in areas such as health, nutrition, and peacebuilding.
“These are women and children, unaccompanied, who now have no shelter, security, or access to water and food to ensure their survival and that of their families in the coming weeks,” it described.
The document stated that both UNHCR and local partner organizations do not have all the necessary conditions to respond to the identified needs, either due to funding difficulties for operations or the inability to secure humanitarian corridors and the safety of humanitarian staff who are working daily to assist these people.
The UN agency highlighted that, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the humanitarian crisis has worsened since the end of 2024, with more than 7.8 million internally displaced people, the second-largest number on the continent, and 1.1 million refugees. There has been an increase in new arrivals of Congolese refugees in Burundi and Uganda.
“The arrival of around 139,000 refugees since January has overwhelmed reception centers, leading to an increase in cases of cholera and child malnutrition. There are 2.3 million people in four provinces affected by the ongoing conflict facing a potentially fatal situation in the coming months unless urgent measures are taken.”
In Sudan, the two-year-long conflict has caused an unprecedented humanitarian emergency, with one in every 13 refugees in the world being Sudanese. “A total of 13 million people have been forced to flee, with four million seeking refuge in neighboring countries such as Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Central Africa, some of which are also very poor and vulnerable territories with no capacity to respond to these people.”
The consequences of this humanitarian crisis are even more devastating, with over 24 million Sudanese – more than half of the country’s population – facing extreme hunger, including 15 million children in urgent need of assistance.
“UNHCR has received reports of severe human rights violations, including systematic sexual violence, and has been reporting violent attacks on displacement camps, forcing tens of thousands to flee again. The scarcity of food, clean water, and medicine is turning a humanitarian crisis into an absolute catastrophe,” it concluded.
Since October 2017, Cabo Delgado, a province rich in gas, has been facing an armed rebellion, which has caused thousands of deaths and a humanitarian crisis, with over one million people displaced.
In 2024 alone, at least 349 people were killed in attacks carried out by Islamic extremist groups in the province, representing a 36% increase compared to the previous year, according to data recently released by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), an academic institution of the U.S. Department of Defense specializing in conflict analysis in Africa.
The latest major attack occurred on May 10 and 11, 2024, when around a hundred insurgents stormed and looted the district headquarters of Macomia, resulting in several deaths and intense fighting with the Mozambique Defense and Security Forces, supported by troops from Rwanda, who are assisting the country in combating the rebels.
