UN seeks to raise £208 million to aid displaced persons in Mozambique

Terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, intensify. The latest records account for at least half a million displaced persons.

To try to respond to the situation, the United Nations is launching a new humanitarian plan to raise approximately 208 million euros.

"The biggest challenge is that in the last few months the situation of insecurity has increased a lot, and is causing an extreme increase in displacement. We have gone from 90,000 displaced people in early 2020 to more than half a million now," Myrta Kaulard - United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mozambique said.

According to the UN resident coordinator in Mozambique, the rainy season aggravates the risk situation of refugees in Pemba province

"Relocating the populations that are in these high-risk neighborhoods to other safer places also needs resources, and the fact that they do not have these resources at this time is very serious and very worrying because these conditions with the rains will further deteriorate the lack of clean water, boys don't have clean water to drink, kids don't have clean water to wash," Kaulard said

Myrta Kaulard considers that the cost of not providing humanitarian assistance is too high, since the population is mostly young, therefore more vulnerable to manipulation by terrorist groups.

United Nations Special Envoy Mirko Manzoni, on a recent visit, said that the international community is not seeing the urgency of the problem of terrorism in Cabo Delgado in a correct way.