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Cabo Delgado: UNHCR Ready to Help Mozambican Government Support Displaced People

Cabo Delgado: UNHCR Ready to Help Mozambican Government Support Displaced People

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said today in Maputo that Mozambique needs to find “the best solutions” for people forced to flee armed attacks in Cabo Delgado and natural disasters, promising support.

“The most important thing is still how to help the government find solutions for the displaced people, either by helping them return to their homes or by transferring them to other places or [to stay] where they are,” said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, speaking to journalists after being received by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi in Maputo.

“We agreed on the next steps and how the United Nations can best help the central government and local authorities respond to this situation by providing humanitarian assistance in the short term,” he said.

Grandi said that legal assistance for the displaced and support for their return to their areas of origin or permanent resettlement in new areas is planned.

On the same occasion, Robert Piper, special adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons, said that Mozambique is a “priority” on the agenda of that UN institution, pointing out that the country faces great needs in terms of humanitarian support.

“Mozambique is a priority country for the United Nations, this is a country where we see great needs, hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans have returned to their homes in recent months to resume their lives, their livelihoods,” said Piper.

The non-governmental organisation (NGO) Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today estimated that more than 80,000 people have fled terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, asking for food assistance and psychological support.

“Six years after the start of the violent conflict in northern Mozambique, people in Cabo Delgado are still living in fear. In 2024 alone, more than 80,000 people had to flee following attacks by armed groups,” MSF said in a statement.

“Displaced families are in urgent need of food, shelter, basic necessities and health and mental health care,” says the organisation.

After several months of relative normality in the districts affected by armed violence in Cabo Delgado, the province has been experiencing new movements and attacks by rebel groups for a few weeks now, which have limited circulation to some points on the few tarmac roads that give access to several districts.

Official government figures indicate that the new wave of attacks in recent weeks has forced 67,321 people to flee their homelands, incursions justified by the Mozambican government as the result of the “movement of small groups of terrorists” who have left their bases in the south of Cabo Delgado, after a period of relative stability.

The province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region.

The conflict has already displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

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