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Brutal jihadist violence forced them to flee their homes, but now hunger has caused some in Mozambique to risk their lives by stealthily returning to their old residences to fetch food – or even resume farming.
Nearly 670,000 people have been displaced by an extremist insurgency that has raged for three years in northern Mozambique.
Some have moved in with host families, some are living in temporary shelters, while others have relocated to newly created safe villages.
But a critical lack of food has led the brave few to return to their old homes to seek whatever they can.
lal Dady said that one day he left his new home in Metuge resettlement camp to scrub his granaries in Quissanga, a district in Cabo Delgado province where the Islamists are waging their bloody campaign.
“I have chestnuts and other food to feed my family,” said the father of a 22-year-old.
Some are even more daring.
Map of Mozambique highlighting the troubled province of Cabo Delgado. By Kun TIAN (AFP) Mussa Cesar, 43, admitted he was returning to Quissanga – an eight-hour walk – to work on his former farmland.
“I went to Quissanga for my field. I stay there for about three days, cultivate and then come back, ”he says, sitting under a tree and playing a traditional game of drafts with friends.
“And I bring cassava for my family here,” he says.
“We just don’t fish, because we are afraid.”
Program voucher
Attacks by shadowy jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State exploded last year in a gas-rich province, triggering a humanitarian crisis.
The number of violent incidents has declined significantly, according to conflict data collection organization ACLED, but the security situation is still precarious across the province.
Local authorities have warned AFP journalists not to use certain roads near the resettlement camps because they are unsafe.
Villagers in the far north of Palma district, home to a multibillion-dollar natural gas project targeted by activists, are particularly vulnerable.
The World Food Program (WFP) distributed vouchers in December and January that residents use to buy food in stores.
Nearly 670,000 people have been displaced by a jihadist insurgency that has raged for three years in northern Mozambique. By Alfredo Zuniga (AFP) But Cristina Graziani, head of WFP’s field office in the provincial capital Pemba, said the program was now “difficult to maintain as stores face the same difficulties in restocking produce in Palma”.
Even before the outbreak of the insurgency, Cabo Delgado was already one of the poorest provinces in Mozambique, itself ranked among the poorest countries in the world.
The UN announced this week that 1.3 million people in Cabo Delgado and the neighboring provinces of Niassa and Nampula are in need of humanitarian assistance, of which 950,000 are facing “severe hunger”.
Fight over food aid
The rush for food is evident in the Pemba neighborhood of Paquite Quete, where many displaced people have moved in with locals.
Residents complain that they are excluded from humanitarian food aid, although they have taken extra mouths to feed themselves.
Widow Josina Fernando, 34, who takes in 30 people who fled the hard-hit Macomia neighborhood, is angry that she was not being considered for the food distribution.
“One day there was a distribution and I went, but I was fired,” she said.
The rush for food is evident in the Pemba neighborhood of Paquite Quete, where many displaced people have moved in with locals. By Alfredo Zuniga (AFP) But some displaced people also say they are missing something.
Fernando’s neighbor, Nassab Hassane, fled Macomia and now lives with 27 people in a family member’s house.
He says he has not received any help since arriving in Pemba four months ago.
“We never received any vouchers, I don’t even know the color of a voucher. They give them to the natives, not to the eligible refugees,” the 44-year-old said.
WFP’s Graziani said aid is channeled to those who have registered.
She added that the local authorities in each neighborhood manage the registration, “to avoid conflicts between the displaced and the inhabitants”.
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