Authorities register 72 missing children in Cabo Delgado

A total of 72 children have gone missing as a result of terrorist attacks that have occurred in recent weeks in the region of Chiure, Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, local authorities said this Monday.

“After the exodus of the population from Chiure to Erati, we have a population of 61 families who complained about their children, 29 were reintegrated, leaving about 72,” said Albertine Oussene, provincial director of the Social Center for Gender, Children and Action in Nampula. , the province in which the Erati district is located, which welcomes displaced people from Chiure.

Houssen spoke at a meeting of representatives of the provincial governments of Nampula and Cabo Delgado to address the situation in communities affected by incursions by armed groups in the region.

The official said efforts were being made to locate the missing children and reunite them with their families.

“We have started contacts with colleagues from Cabo Delgado” to find the missing children and reintegrate them into their families, he stressed.

Albertina Oussene said 67 pregnant women fled villages in Chiure affected by gun violence and took refuge in Erati, where they are receiving psychosocial support and antenatal care.

After months of relative normalcy in areas of Cabo Delgado affected by armed violence, the province has been registering new movements and attacks for weeks by rebel groups that have restricted traffic at some points on the few paved roads that give access to several areas.

Official figures show the new wave of attacks has forced 67,321 people to flee their homelands. Mozambican authorities justify these incursions as “the movement of small groups of terrorists” who left their bases towards the south of Cabo Delgado after some time. relative stability.

Cabo Delgado province has faced an armed insurgency for six years, with the extremist group Islamic State claiming responsibility for some attacks.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021, backed by Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating areas near gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region.

The conflict has already displaced one million people, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) has killed nearly 4,000 people.