Nearly 30,000 children fled Mozambique violence in June: charity

• More than 50,000 adults and children forced to flee their homes in Cabo Delgado province.
• June was the worst month for families and children in a year, charity says.
• More than 700,000 people have been displaced by violence in Mozambique so far.

A new wave of violence in militants-infested northern Mozambique uprooted nearly 30,000 children in June, the highest monthly figure in the long-running crisis, according to a British charity.

In June, there was an increase in attacks in Cabo Delgado province, where militants launched a bloody insurgency in 2017, prompting a regional military mission last year that restored security.

At least 53 people were killed in several districts, forcing more than 50,000 adults and children to flee their homes, the charity Save the Children said.

“This has been the worst month for families and children in Cabo Delgado in a year,” Brechtje van Lith, its country director for Mozambique, said in a statement

She said people fleeing the violence, which has displaced more than 700,000 so far, were running out of options for shelter.

“And yet this is not the first time they are going through this — many are experiencing violence for the umpteenth time with no end in sight,” she said.

The charity sounded the alarm about mental health.

“Many of them have lost loved ones or witnessed horrors that no child or adult should ever need to see,” she said.

Nearly 4,100 people have been killed in Mozambique since 2017, according to the conflict watchdog ACLED.

Last June, 3,100 troops from several African countries descended on Cabo Delgado and retook control of much of the territory.

According to diplomatic and humanitarian officials, the insurgents have since divided into three groups.

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