Mozambique Crisis

Mozambique Map
Source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

The country

Mozambique is a country in southeastern Africa that gained independence from Portugal in 1975. Located on the Indian Ocean, the country shares land borders with Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini and South Africa. Its capital is Maputo. Mozambique covers an area of 799,380 square kilometers. In 2025, the country's population is estimated at around 34.9 million people. Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest and least developed states.

The humanitarian situation

The humanitarian crisis in Mozambique's northern province of Cabo Delgado continues to force people to flee their homes. Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced due to violence perpetrated by non-state armed groups (NSAGs), and hundreds of thousands of returnees in conflict-affected areas continue to be highly vulnerable. An estimated 5.2 million children, women, and men across Mozambique are in need of humanitarian aid in 2025, including some 1.3 million in Cabo Delgado and neighboring Niassa and Nampula provinces. Mozambique is also highly susceptible to climate shocks and frequent natural hazards such as drought, floods and tropical storms.

Humanitarian needs in the country have increased in 2025 due to escalating violence in the north's conflict-affected areas, cyclones, and cholera outbreaks. Over the past few months, Mozambique has been hit with several emergencies: deteriorating conflict in the north, intensifying and recurring climate shocks, and deadly disease outbreaks like cholera. Meanwhile, humanitarian funding has been persistently insufficient.

The conflict in northern Mozambique, particularly in Cabo Delgado province but also in neighboring Niassa and Nampula provinces, remains highly volatile and difficult to predict. In May 2025, the number of violence-related security incidents affecting civilians reached the highest level since 2022. Attacks by armed groups have occurred in larger geographical areas and moved closer to main roads, disrupting mobility and hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid.

As of April, there were more than 600,000 internally displaced people across Mozambique, 53 percent of whom were children. Over 700,000 returnees had gone back to their places of origin, yet they are still in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. According to a June 2025 report from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the situation in northern Mozambique was one of the world's three most neglected displacement crises in 2024.

The armed conflict in northern Mozambique has also exacerbated food insecurity and malnutrition. Families have been forced to abandon their homes and fields, and erratic rains in some parts of the region have worsened crop losses. In Mozambique, some 3.3 million people faced severe acute food insecurity (IPC phase 3 or worse) between October 2024 and March 2025.  Of these, 773,000 were estimated to be in emergency hunger (IPC phase 4). 

Approximately 144,000 children under the age of five are affected by acute malnutrition. 

The main drivers of food insecurity in Mozambique are the impact of the drought and other climate-related shocks, as well as the conflict in northern Mozambique.

Mozambique is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of global climate change. During the rainy season, which lasts from October to April, it is subject to cyclical flooding and tropical cyclones. People in the southeastern African country are living with the dual impacts of high climate risk and poverty.

In 2023, Tropical Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record, hit Mozambique twice with destructive winds, extreme rainfall and widespread flooding. Freddy's double landfall in February and March 2023 - one year after the devastating Tropical Cyclone Gombe in 2022, caused extensive damage - claimed nearly 200 lives, left more than 184,000 people homeless and affected a total of some 1.2 million men, women and children in the country.

In December 2024, Tropical Cyclone Chido ravaged northern Mozambique, a region already severely affected by armed conflict. The storm destroyed homes, displaced thousands, and severely damaged roads and communication networks, hampering relief efforts in areas already hosting large numbers of displaced people. Chido affected 450,000 people and left communities in desperate need of assistance. 

In the first half of 2025, the country was hit by two tropical cyclones in less than three months: Cyclone Dikeledi in January and Cyclone Jude in March, which affected over 1.3 million people, caused dozens of deaths, and severely damaged critical infrastructure. Throughout the 2024/2025 rainy season, three cyclones - Dikeledi, Jude, and Chido in December 2024 - caused at least 180 deaths and together impacted nearly 1.8 million people.

Since October 2024, Mozambique has been grappling with a major cholera outbreak. Health authorities have reported outbreaks in at least five provinces. Poor access to clean water, exacerbated by the recent tropical storms and inadequate infrastructure, has fueled the outbreak. Between October 2024 and July 2025, nearly 4,500 new cholera cases and over 60 deaths were reported.

Mozambique's water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs are enormous. In 2022, only 63 percent of Mozambicans had access to basic water services, according to estimates. The situation in the sanitation sector is even more critical, with only 38 percent of the population having access to basic sanitation.

Meanwhile, humanitarian operations in the country remain woefully underfunded. As of August 2025, the Mozambique Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) — which seeks $352 million — is only 19 percent funded, having received a mere $66 million. The critical lack of funding severely limits the ability of humanitarian organizations to address the crisis.

Thousands of children under five are at high risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) due to a shortage of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) caused by the lack of funding. A major funding shortfall is also crippling national health programs and the humanitarian health response.

In response to the global funding crisis, aid agencies have reprioritized their efforts, targeting just 317,000 people — a staggering 71 percent reduction from the original target of 1.1 million. The revised plan requires $126 million.

Funding shortfalls last year already hampered humanitarian assistance and limited food distribution. The Mozambique 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), which targeted 1.7 million vulnerable people, was only 39 percent funded as of January 2025. The Mozambique Drought Flash Appeal 2024 was only 32 percent covered. According to UN estimates, 2.3 million children, women, and men in Mozambique were in need of humanitarian aid in 2024. 

In 2023, some 2 million people were in of need of life-saving and life-sustaining humanitarian assistance and protection in the southeastern African country.  Among them were 1.1 million children. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2023, 1.6 million people in northern Mozambique received some form of humanitarian assistance, provided by a total of 73 humanitarian organizations.

The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Mozambique appealed for US$513 million to target 1.6 million people. At the start of 2024, the 2023 HRP was only 38 percent funded.

Mozambique LocationThe security situation

Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado has been plagued by the rise of violent extremism since 2017. Thousands have reportedly been killed by non-state armed groups. In October 2017, Islamic extremist groups began conducting attacks against civilians and security services in the northern province. 

The Cabo Delgado insurgency is an ongoing conflict primarily between Islamic militants and jihadists seeking to establish an Islamic state in the region and the Mozambican army and security forces. Human rights organizations report that violent extremists have committed serious human rights violations against civilians, which include beheadings, kidnappings, and the use of child soldiers. According to analysts, the insurgency is fueled by socio-economic exclusion amid major mineral and hydrocarbon discoveries in the northern region.

In 2020, the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado deteriorated, with a significant increase in the number and scale of attacks by extremist groups and the resulting humanitarian impact. After a sharp escalation in the first half of 2021, the conflict subsided in early 2022 following the deployment of Rwandan and Southern African Development Community (SADC) forces to help the Mozambican government regain control of areas previously under the control of armed groups.

However, the conflict in northern Mozambique resumed in 2022, for the first time in areas that had not experienced attacks in Cabo Delgado and Nampula. The conflict continues to exacerbate the needs of IDPs and host communities. In late October and November 2022, the activities of non-state armed groups spread into northern Mozambique, causing new displacements and exacerbating the humanitarian needs of conflict-affected populations. In 2022, up to one million people were internally displaced, half of them children.

In 2023, the humanitarian situation in northern Mozambique was marked by the steady return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their home districts as violence in Cabo Delgado province decreased significantly compared to 2022. IDPs had returned to their communities as a result of improved security, a desire to reunite with their families, and to reclaim their land and cultivate crops.

However, violence against civilians continued in 2023. Non-state armed groups retained the ability to carry out localized attacks. Over the course of that year, more than 100,000 people were displaced as a result of localized attacks by NSAGs. Since the end of December 2023, large-scale attacks resumed, displacing more than 150,000 people.

Since December 2023, attacks escalated in the northern province, characterized by violence against civilians, forced displacement, and damage to civilian infrastructure. Insurgents targeted security forces and civilians, and made unprecedented efforts to burn churches.

Between the end of December 2023 and May 2024, there was a new wave of violence in the north due to attacks by non-state armed groups, which caused more than 100,000 people to flee within the province of Cabo Delgado, but also to the province of Nampula - the second largest population displacement since the conflict began in 2017. 

In 2024, renewed violence in Cabo Delgado displaced nearly 200,000 people in the first five months alone. The highest level of displacement occurred in February of 2024 when more than 90,000 people fled their homes. The attacks came in the middle of the harvest season, leaving farmers with no choice but to abandon their fields and livestock.

As of December 2024, approximately 740,000 people were still internally displaced in the country due to violence by armed groups and the devastating impact of the climate crisis.  Although the security situation had improved, some 580,000 women, men, and children remained displaced in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, and Niassa provinces due to protracted insecurity, more than 160,000 people were displaced following the impacts of extreme weather events.

NSAG violence and resultant displacement increased again in October and November last year, particularly in Cabo Delgado Province, driving protection concerns and limiting humanitarian access. In October 2024, the international humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) suspended much of its relief operations in northern Mozambique as movement in the field remained too dangerous, and expressed grave concern about the intensifying crisis in the country.

Since January 2025, ongoing violence and insecurity have displaced over 100,000 people. Many of them still live in dire conditions, lacking access to essential services and protection. The renewed conflict in northern Mozambique has further aggravated the situation of displaced people, many of whom have been forced to flee multiple times.

Donations

Your donation for the Mozambique emergency can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.

There are currently only a few active appeals for the Mozambique crisis. You may also consider making an unearmarked donation to organizations that are active in the country.

To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.

Further Information

Last updated: 08/08/2025

Tags