UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, (left) meets with displaced people in Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique. (UN Photo)
Geneva (UNA-OIC) – Senior leaders with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned on Monday of the urgent need to address the growing humanitarian crisis in the Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, where an ongoing insurgency has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people.
Assistant High Commissioners Gillian Triggs and Raouf Mazou were fresh from the country, where they heard shocking stories from survivors of a crisis that is unfolding in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of several devastating cyclones.
The violence is escalating, they told journalists in Geneva, with the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) increasing from around 70,000 roughly a year ago, to close to 700,000 today, and expected to reach one million by June.
“If one looks at the speed at which we are seeing the number of internally displaced persons rise, we know that the window of opportunity that we have is closing,” said Mazou, who is UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations.
The insurgency began in 2017 and more than 2,000 people have been killed, but it is not clear who the insurgents are, how they are supported, or what they want, according to Ms. Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.
The “mysterious group” has been responsible for beheadings, killings, rape and other atrocities.
The displaced people, more than half of them children, fled by boat or on land for safer areas further south in Cabo Delgado province. Most, or around 90 percent, have found shelter with family and friends in urban areas, or with host communities in villages. The Mozambican Government is developing sites for the remaining displaced people.
