https://www.africanews.com/2021/03/...ced-mozambicans-to-risk-going-home-for-food//
Brutal jihadist violence forced them to flee their homes, but now hunger has driven some in Mozambique to risk their lives by sneaking back to their old residences to gather 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 resettled in newly-created safe villages.
But a critical lack of food has led to a brave few returning to their old homes to forage for whatever they can.
lal Dady said that one day he left his new home in the Metuge resettlement camp to scour his granaries in Quissanga, a district in Cabo Delgado province where the Islamists are waging their bloody campaign.
“I got chestnuts and other food products to feed my family,” said the 22-year-old father of one.
Some are even more daring.
Mussa Cesar, 43, confessed that he goes back to Quissanga — an eight-hour walk — to work on his old farmland.
“I have been going to Quissanga for my field. I stay there around three days, cultivating and then come back,” he said, sitting under a tree and playing a traditional draughts game with friends.
“And I bring back manioc for my family here,” he said.
“We just don’t do the fishing, because we are afraid.”
– Voucher programme –
Attacks by shadowy jihadists affiliated to the Islamic State skyrocketed last year in gas-rich province, triggering a humanitarian crisis.
The number of violent incidents has dropped significantly, according to conflict data collating organisation ACLED, but the security situation is still precarious across the province.
Local authorities warned AFP journalists not to use some roads not far from the resettlement camps, because they were unsafe….
Brutal jihadist violence forced them to flee their homes, but now hunger has driven some in Mozambique to risk their lives by sneaking back to their old residences to gather 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 resettled in newly-created safe villages.
But a critical lack of food has led to a brave few returning to their old homes to forage for whatever they can.
lal Dady said that one day he left his new home in the Metuge resettlement camp to scour his granaries in Quissanga, a district in Cabo Delgado province where the Islamists are waging their bloody campaign.
“I got chestnuts and other food products to feed my family,” said the 22-year-old father of one.
Some are even more daring.
Mussa Cesar, 43, confessed that he goes back to Quissanga — an eight-hour walk — to work on his old farmland.
“I have been going to Quissanga for my field. I stay there around three days, cultivating and then come back,” he said, sitting under a tree and playing a traditional draughts game with friends.
“And I bring back manioc for my family here,” he said.
“We just don’t do the fishing, because we are afraid.”
– Voucher programme –
Attacks by shadowy jihadists affiliated to the Islamic State skyrocketed last year in gas-rich province, triggering a humanitarian crisis.
The number of violent incidents has dropped significantly, according to conflict data collating organisation ACLED, but the security situation is still precarious across the province.
Local authorities warned AFP journalists not to use some roads not far from the resettlement camps, because they were unsafe….
