The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is appealing for $413 million in emergency funding to help more than 1.7 million people in Mozambique cope with climate disasters and an insurgency concentrated in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The UN estimates that 2.3 million children, women and men in the country will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, most of them in Cabo Delgado and the neighboring provinces of Niassa and Nampula.
OCHA Mozambique representative Paola Serrao Emerson told a media conference in Maputo on Friday that her organization's efforts to address the souring humanitarian situation in the southern African country are facing financial problems.
"We are looking for $413 million for Cabo Delgado or war in Mozambique, and of that we have received just about $43 million or so, just over 11 percent, so we are woefully underfunded," she said. "Normally at this time of the year we would at least 20 or more percent funding."
The funding shortfall is preventing a large-scale humanitarian response as aid agencies struggle to meet the needs of a growing number of internally displaced people. According to Emerson, food insecurity exacerbates the vulnerability of IDPs, host communities and returnees alike.
"Humanitarian organizations, the UN, national and international organizations are supporting people every day with food assistance, with health support, with child support assistance, with mental health psychiatric support amongst many others throughout Cabo Delgado," she said.
"However, the funding situation is difficult to provide comprehensive multi-sectoral support to all areas that are affected."
The armed conflict in northern Mozambique has also increased food insecurity and malnutrition. Families have been forced to abandon their homes and fields, and erratic rainfall in some parts of the region has exacerbated crop losses.
Overall, 3.3 million people across Mozambique were at risk of acute food insecurity (IPC 3 or worse) between October 2023 and March 2024. About 220,000 people faced emergency levels of hunger (IPC 4). In Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces, more than 1.2 million people were in need of food assistance.
The lack of funding comes at a time when attacks by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) have intensified in northern Mozambique. Last month, missionaries, priests and nuns were forced to flee from remote towns and villages to Pemba and other big cities, which are overwhelmed with displaced people as the insurgency in Cabo Delgado escalates.
At the same time, Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops have begun to withdraw due to financial constraints. Defense Minister Cristovao Chume told state-run Radio Mozambique on Friday that the end of the mission should not be seen as a rupture in cooperation with SADC.
He said the SADC military mission was leaving Mozambique because it had achieved the objective for which it was created - to stabilize the north of Cabo Delgado and reclaim areas controlled by "terrorists". Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi says his country’s armed forces should take a more prominent role in “counterterrorism” operations, despite some challenges.
The Cabo Delgado insurgency is an ongoing conflict primarily between Islamic militants and jihadists, who seek to establish an Islamic state in the region, and the Mozambican army and security forces. Since 2017, Mozambique has faced armed violence, with some attacks claimed by a militant group calling itself Islamic State Mozambique (ISM).
The insurgency in Cabo Delgado has disrupted several multibillion-dollar oil and natural gas projects. Analysts say the insurgency is fueled by socio-economic exclusion amid major mineral and hydrocarbon discoveries in the northern region. Oil giants ExxonMobil and Total are amongst the international energy companies developing natural gas projects off the coast of northern Mozambique.
Since December 2023, the northern province has seen an escalation of attacks characterized by violence against civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure. Insurgents have targeted security forces and civilians, and have made unprecedented efforts to burn churches.
The upsurge in conflict has resulted in the displacement of more than 100,000 people, including 61,400 children. Urgent needs include food, shelter and health services, particularly to prevent or contain the spread of diseases such as cholera. Approximately 950,000 people are in need of health assistance.
The highest level of displacement occurred in February this year, 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 farmland and livestock.
The latest wave of violence comes against the backdrop of the return of IDPs in 2023. Over the past year, the humanitarian situation in northern Mozambique has been characterized by the steady return of displaced people to their home districts. People returned because of improved security, a desire to reunite with their families, and to secure their land and cultivate crops.
However, in December 2023, confrontations between armed groups and security forces intensified as violent attacks against civilians increased. Beginning in February, militant groups expanded their activities southward.
Civilians, especially children, have been severely affected by the fighting and many have been displaced, including those who had returned home. As a result, many have been forced to flee multiple times.
As of March 2024, approximately 710,000 people remain internally displaced due to violence perpetrated by non-state armed groups and the devastating effects of the climate crisis. People in the north have endured violence and multiple waves of displacement in recent years.
Mozambique is also vulnerable to climate shocks and frequent natural hazards such as droughts, floods, and tropical storms. In 2023, Tropical Cyclone Freddy, a storm of record-breaking length, twice hit the northern region of Mozambique with destructive winds, extreme rainfall and widespread flooding.
The double landfall of Tropical Cyclone Freddy in February and March 2023, one year after the devastating Tropical Cyclone Gombe, 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.
Since the start of the 2023/2024 rainy and cyclone season, nearly 200,000 people - 40,000 families - have been affected by extreme weather, with 146 deaths and 202 injured. The National Institute for Disaster Management estimates that more than 774,000 people are at risk from cyclones this storm season.
Droughts, which have become more frequent, are also a major concern, as 80 percent of the population of more than 33 million depends on rain-fed agriculture.
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), a record dry spell of more than 30 days has affected much of the southern African region, including parts of Mozambique and neighboring Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The affected areas have received the lowest rainfall for the late January/February period in at least 40 years.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.