NAMAPA, Mozambique: Mozambique’s government confirmed on Tuesday that tens of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes by a wave of jihadist attacks in the restive north.
However, the government rejected calls for a state of emergency.
“We are talking about 67,321 displaced people,” government spokesman Filimao Suaze said during a press conference in the capital Maputo. Describing the situation in Cabo Delgado province, the spokesman said this figure “Corresponds to 14,270 families who are therefore considered to have arrived in the province of Nampula and… other places.”
But Suaze said the government did not “believe that the conditions for declaring a state of emergency… in Cabo Delgado have yet been created.”
According to local reports and figures for displaced people from the UN migration agency IOM, fresh unrest broke out in northern Mozambique two weeks ago.
“The sounds of gunshots woke us up, they began to chase people, we watched as they cut off the men’s heads with machetes, and we ran away with the little we had,” Josefina Gabriele told reporters, adding, “those terrorists are evil”.
The 40-year-old woman was among those who fled a week ago to Namapa, a small town in Nampula province, south of Cabo Delgado.
Thousands of refugees waded through the rain, some carrying bags of clothes and others carrying babies on their backs.
Others waited in lines separated by circles on the gravel to receive food parcels distributed by the United Nations World Food Program, according to media reports.
IOM estimates that 71,681 people fled the attacks in Makoya, Chiore, McPhee, Musimboa da Peria and Mwidombe between 22 December and 25 February.
During a week time, the IOM recorded that more than 30,000 displaced persons arrived in the town of Namapa in Nampula province by boat, bus or on foot.
The insurgency began in October 2017, when militants attacked the gas-rich northern coastal region of Cabo Delgado, near the Tanzanian border.
Since July 2021, thousands of troops from Rwanda and the SADC region have been sent to reinforce the Mozambican army and have since helped regain control of large parts of Cabo Delgado.
The SADC mission is expected to end by mid-July, the coalition said.
But Souze told reporters that he “refused to talk about it, at least for now.”
He said that Mozambique is “doing everything possible” to “fight terrorism and ensure the security of its people to such an extent that the fact that some forces are withdrawing and others are remaining is not significant.” ” “I do,” he claimed.
“The government is paying attention,” he said.
Almost 5,000 people have been killed and almost a million have been forced to leave their homes since IS-linked militants launched the insurgency.
