Thousands of people, most of them children, have been forced to flee their homes amid renewed unrest in northern Mozambique, a scene of a jihadist insurgency, according to United Nations figures and sources in Cabo Delgado province.
Since 2017, Cabo Delgado has been the epicenter of a brutal jihadist insurgency, resulting in thousands of deaths and displacing over a million people. Recent attacks in three districts had displaced 13,088 people by bus, canoe and on foot, according to an alert from the UN migration agency IOM. Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi has confirmed there had been new population movements but played down the threat and insisted security forces had the situation under control. “There are a significant number of people who move from one area to another and complain about support,” the president said, adding that “terrorists try to recruit in this province, which is why we see these movements.”
Nigeria-based HumAngle, a niche media platform, has also warned that fears of further terror attacks attributed to the Islamic State Jihadists, IS-Mozambique, locally known as Al-Shabaab, are forcing thousands of terrified residents to flee their villages in Cabo Delgado province. The number of displaced people in the region is rapidly increasing, with fears of further attacks mostly against the Christian majority population prompting residents to flee. As of 2023, over 2 million people required immediate humanitarian assistance and protection in Cabo Delgado and nearby provinces. European Commission estimates included more than a million people evicted from their homes, with around 3.5 million facing acute food insecurity in northeastern Mozambique.