By Rocio Paik, Scalabrinian Press
The province of Cabo Delgado, which is located in the far northeast of Mozambique, has experienced several conflicts over the last three years involving armed and unknown groups. October 5, 2017 was the date of the first attack in the region.
Since then, Cabo Delgado has lost more than a thousand lives, as well as thousands of people who have had to leave their homes. Villages, government buildings, non-governmental organizations and religious institutions have been violently attacked.
In the midst of the crisis, the Scalabrinians are on a mission these days to understand and help the displaced people in the province of Cabo Delgado.
More than 250,000 people have been displaced by the war and are living in camps. Some have fled to nearby provinces and others to neighboring countries. More than 50,000 displaced people are in the city of Pemba and, on average, 35 to 40 people live in a single house.
Sister Marinês Biasibetti, a Scalabrinian missionary and secretary general of the Episcopal Commission for Migrants, Refugees and Displaced Persons (CEMIRDE), is currently in Pemba. According to her, "the challenge is psychosocial accompaniment, because suffering, trauma, fear, panic, loss, lack of prospects for better living conditions... all this leads to crime, violence, stress, suicide and even more misery."
For Sister Marinês, the current situation presents various challenges for the mission, such as accompanying women and children who have lost family members who have been killed or lost in the forest, sending assistance for human promotion actions, implementing self-sustainability projects, focusing on the mission in favor of defending human rights, citizenship, preventing human trafficking, reintegrating the communities of origin of the displaced, setting up houses of welcome in the province, and the permanent presence and mission of the sisters of the MSCS congregation in the diocese.
All these challenges are part of a broader one, which is to put an end to the war in Cabo Delgado province.
What about Covid-19?
Just as cases of the spread of the new coronavirus are increasing around the world, there is an expectation that Covid-19 will grow in Mozambique, which worries the Scalabrinians who are on mission in the country, which currently has 2,079 people infected with the virus, in addition to 15 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Impacts of war
Sister Marinês emphasized that the war in Cabo Delgado has had a visible impact on the lives of the population: more poverty, misery, violence, human rights violations, forced migration, loss of human life, more illness and suffering for the majority of families.
A day in Muidumbe
Father Edgard, a missionary of Our Lady of Salette (Saletino), is currently on mission in Muidumbe, a district of Cabo Delgado. The health posts are still closed, the hospital is burnt out, and the pastoral health center is receiving people in search of medicines. Children with diarrhea and lumps, skin problems.
In the early afternoon, at 1pm, Fathers Edgard and Hélio arrived in Mueda, where everyone was talking about the attack on a community in Moçimbua. While walking to buy milk, chima and rice for the malnourished children, they came across a group of 28 people - including women, children and men - who were fleeing an attack in Litamanda.
On the same day, there was more sad news: the secondary school teacher died while giving birth to twins. Only one child survived.
"We've been away for three months. So we have a lot of work to do. This is a region that has a lot of termites, so we're sweeping out rooms in the pastoral center, the church and the whole pastoral environment. We have to make lunch, take care of laundry, look after the house. We have a very small team," said Father Edgar.
The missionaries have been teaching the population how to make homemade serum - especially for children with lumps on their bodies, how to prepare guava tea, banana heart syrup and multimixture.
This is a day in Muindumbe, Cabo Delgado province.
Source: Scalabrinian Press - SP