Two weeks of Islamist violence have led to the displacement of around 60,000 people in Mozambique. Locals also say that the militants have abducted children.
Ansar al-Sunna, which is aligned with ISIS, primarily operates within the northern Cabo Degado region of Mozambique. The ongoing insurgency by the group, which began in 2017, has already claimed the lives of 6,000 people. Over 460,000 people have been displaced by the conflict up to now.
Speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), local priest Father Kwiriwi Fonseca said, “This aimless war only kills, kills, kills, and takes away the little hope that the people – especially the youngsters – had.
“These children have to be returned, they need to be sought wherever they’re, to be returned to their parents because these children should dream, these children should have a greater future.”
Father Fonesca said that adding to the pain of the deaths, abductions and chaos, is the undeniable fact that the plight of his people is comparatively unknown.
Islamist violence is a well known danger for Christians in places just like the Middle East, Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and even here persecution receives scant attention from politicians and secular media. Attention on Mozambique is much more scarce.
“The humanitarian crisis brought on by this war tends to be forgotten and silenced,” he said.
“This silence bothers us, at a time when hundreds upon hundreds of our brothers in Cabo Delgado, especially within the region of Chiúre, have seen the crisis aggravated by latest attacks, their homes burned, their children taken from them.”
Compounding the suffering brought on by the violence is the undeniable fact that Mozambique remains to be recovering from a big natural disaster after much of south-east Africa was devastated by Cyclone Chido last December.
Winds reached highs of 130 mph and while records are sketchy, it seems that a whole bunch and possibly hundreds of individuals were killed by the cyclone, with similar numbers also going missing.
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