300,000 People Displaced In Northern Mozambique — UN

The UN said Tuesday it was “gravely concerned” at the number of civilians fleeing violence in northern Mozambique, where it says around 300,000 people have been displaced in recent months.

A jihadist insurgency in the Cabo Delgado province has caused the deaths of over 6,200, according to the Global conflict monitoring group ACLED. Violence has also spilled into the neighbouring Nampula province.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said violence had pushed almost 100,000 people to flee the region over the past two weeks alone.

And in the last three months, “a minimum of 287,000” people have fled, according to UNHCR representative Xavier Creach.

“I would say this figure is only the people who have been registered,” he told reporters in Geneva, adding that “many more” individual cases have gone unrecorded.

“I think we can talk approximately of a minimum of 300,000 displaced over there since July,” he said.

READ ALSO: UK’s Withdrawal From Mozambique LNG Funding Is A Blow To African Energy Justice — AEC

Since then, the agency has observed “intensifying attacks on villages and the rapid spillover of the conflict into previously safe districts”, making the provision of humanitarian aid more difficult.

Creach described “very challenging needs” in the region and a “largely insufficient response”.

“Humanitarian actors collectively… cannot sustain the response without additional support and resources,” UNHCR said in a statement, calling for “urgent international support”.

Since the current conflict erupted in 2017, more than 1.3 million people in Mozambique have been displaced, according to the agency.