Islamic State-linked fighters displace over 46,000 people in northern Mozambique, UN says
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.
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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
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The conference was notable for being co-chaired by an Arab and Western nation, and for setting up eight working groups with diverse chairs to make proposals on key issues for a two state solution — security for Israel and an independent Palestine, political reforms, legal problems, humanitarian assistance, economic development and Gaza reconstruction, to name some. The result was a seven-page 'New York Declaration.' The French and Saudi foreign ministers sent the declaration, with a lengthy annex of recommendations from the working groups, to all 193 U.N. members and asked them to endorse it by early September, before the world leaders' gathering. The declaration, which also was endorsed by the European Union and Arab League, urges Israel to commit to a Palestinian state, and urges further recognitions as 'an essential and indispensable component of the achievement of the two-state solution.' 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