I’ve posted several times previously (most recently here) about the violent jihad in northern Mozambique. The article below reports on the continuing carnage in Cabo Delgado.
Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from the Portuguese daily Publico:
More than 9,000 people have fled from Palma due to attacks
Almost half of the dislocated who fled from the Mozambican locality in the last week are children. UN official describes “absolute horror”.
[Photo caption: Arrival at Pemba of hundreds of dislocated from Palma]
April 2, 2021
More than 9,000 people have fled from the town of Palma, in the northern part of Mozambique, since the attack by jihadist groups on March 24, revealed the cabinet of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“At least 9,158 people — 45% of whom are children — arrived in the districts of Nangade, Mueda, Montepuez, and Pemba, according to the latest update from the World Organization for Migration,” states OCHA, in a statement released this Friday.
Prior to the attack at Palma the terrorist attacks upon the populations in the north of Mozambique had already forced almost 670,000 people to flee, including among them 160,000 women and adolescents, 19,000 of whom are pregnant.
Of the people who fled from Palma, 67% managed to stay with families of reception who received the displaced people in their homes.
OCHA stresses that “the situation remains volatile and thousands of people are on the move searching for safety and assistance,” after the terrorist movement Daesh (ISIS) claimed control last Monday over Palma, next to the border with Tanzania.
In Pemba, the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado, a reception center was set up in the port and a triage center in the sports pavilion. Humanitarian workers are distributing food to the displaced people, setting up sanitary facilities, and referring people who need more urgent medical care.
On Tuesday, the spokesperson for OCHA, Jens Laerke, told the news agency Lusa that the situation in Palma is “an absolute horror inflicted against civilians by an armed, non-state group”. “They did horrible things and continue to do them,” said the official, stressing that the attacks will continue to make thousands of people flee.
OCHA says that there are thousands of people still walking through the bush in order to reach safe places, and that there are still an unknown number of displaced people at Quitunda, 15 kilometers south of Palma.