Islamic State-linked fighters displace over 46,000 people in northern Mozambique, UN says

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) – Attacks by insurgents in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province displaced more than 46,000 people in the space of eight days last month, the United Nations migration agency said Monday.

The International Organization for Migration said nearly 60% of those forced from their homes were children. There have been no reports of deaths in the attacks.

In a separate report, the U.N.’s humanitarian office said the wave of attacks between July 20 and July 28 across three districts in Cabo Delgado caused the surge in displacements.

The southern African nation has been fighting an insurgency by Islamic State-affiliated militants in the north for at least eight years. Rwandan soldiers have been deployed to help Mozambique fight them.

The jihadis have been accused of beheading villagers and kidnapping children to be used as laborers or child soldiers. The U.N. estimates that the violence, and the impact of drought and several cyclones in recent years, has led to the displacement of more than 1 million people in northern Mozambique.

Doctors Without Borders said it has launched an emergency response to help thousands of recently displaced people who now live in camps in Chiure, the district that experienced the worst of the attacks.

Cabo Delgado has large offshore natural gas reserves, and the insurgency caused the suspension of a $20 billion extraction project by French company TotalEnergies in 2021.