{"id":42356,"date":"2019-12-18T10:30:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T08:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/burkina-faso\/mozambique-armed-violence-exacerbates-suffering-in-cyclone-aftermath\/"},"modified":"2019-12-18T10:30:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T08:30:05","slug":"mozambique-armed-violence-exacerbates-suffering-in-cyclone-aftermath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/burkina-faso\/mozambique-armed-violence-exacerbates-suffering-in-cyclone-aftermath\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozambique: Armed Violence Exacerbates Suffering in Cyclone Aftermath"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Armed violence in Mozambique\u2019s northernmost province Cabo Delgado is forcing scores of people from their homes, destroying villages and health centres, and making it difficult for families to recover from Cyclone Kenneth, which hit the area in April 2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Attacks on Mozambicans have been recurrent in Cabo Delgado since 2017. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is concerned about the impact of the armed violence on displaced Mozambicans and their host communities, should this pattern continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the province of Cabo Delgado the population since 2017 has suffered from armed violence and attacks on their villages,\u201d said Patricia Danzi, ICRC\u2019s regional director for Africa. \u201cMany people had to leave their houses, leave their crops behind and most of their goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the last two years, hundreds of people have been wounded and killed, homes burned down, and property looted. Safe access to affected communities is a challenge for humanitarian organisations like the ICRC, making the real scale of the needs hard to determine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe humanitarian community has problems accessing all of the areas in the province,\u201d said Danzi. \u201cArmed violence prevents us and others from going anywhere, anytime. Each time we want to go somewhere we have to make sure we arrive safely and come back safely and if we don\u2019t get the guarantees, we can\u2019t go. The same goes for the people. If they don\u2019t feel safe to move to places where they can access basic services, they will not go. The true scale of the people that are affected is still unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

People are seeking refuge in the relative safety of larger towns such as Macomia, putting a strain on already scarce resources. Most of those displaced by the armed violence are living with local families, who are generously sharing their homes and what resources they have.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a merchant, doing my business at a small shop,\u201d said Maquela Salimane, who fled his village with his wife and four children and is now living with another family in Macomia town. \u201cBut as soon as they came in, they burned my shop and all my belongings. The clothes I am wearing are the only ones I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others are sheltering in whatever open spaces they can find. Catarina Jaime is one of 23 people sleeping on the dirt-floor of a primary school classroom after their village was attacked in recent weeks. \u201cOur biggest concern is that someone helps us find a place [to live] because we\u2019re not safe here,\u201d Catarina said.<\/p>\n

The armed violence is also affecting people\u2019s ability to feed their families. People are increasingly turning to charcoal production, a trade that can have long-lasting environmental consequences, because they are afraid they will be attacked if they go to their field outside Macomia town. This comes after losing their previous harvest to Cyclone Kenneth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that money you may have a little to support yourself,\u201d said Musa Alfane, who makes roughly 3 USD for one 50-kg bag of charcoal. \u201cHere there has been a lot of hunger due to armed violence and the cyclone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albertina Clemente lost her home in Cyclone Kenneth and now worries about the impact the armed violence could have on her family. \u201cThe attacks are frequent,\u201d she said. \u201cWe live in fear. We cannot sleep. Just yesterday we heard gunshots and some of us ran away to sleep in the bush.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others like Sumail Gomes are choosing to move to Macomia town before they are attacked. \u201cI am leaving where I lived because the problem of the armed group is getting much worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The ICRC started to work in Cabo Delgado in 2018 and has since worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Mozambique Red Cross to provide seeds, farming tools, and other relief items to families in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth. It also reconstructed the maternity hospital in Macomia town after it was destroyed in the storm and is rehabilitating the local water system. However, this is just skimming the surface of the real needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have the double impact of the armed violence and the cyclone, which tore through the province at the beginning of the year, destroying many of the assets people had,\u201d said Danzi. \u201cIt adds on top of what they have to do. They have to rebuild their lives twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/i>
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa Burkina Faso<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo Armed violence in Mozambique\u2019s northernmost province Cabo Delgado is forcing scores of people from their homes, destroying villages and health centres, and making it difficult for families to recover from Cyclone Kenneth, which hit the area in April 2019. Attacks on Mozambicans have been recurrent in Cabo Delgado since 2017. The International Committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4934],"tags":[258,256,9554,9663,4936,12466,31845,4704,257,254,6566,2148],"class_list":["post-42356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-burkina-faso","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-aftermath","tag-armed","tag-burkina-faso-news","tag-cyclone","tag-exacerbates","tag-mozambique","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-suffering","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}