'No one supports the children': Hunger plagues Mozambique
No one comes anymore with food, clothing and blankets to the camp in the city of Pemba, where she has lived since she fled a rebel attack on the northern town of Macomia five years ago.
"For a long time, they used to support us, but now they've left us. Everyone manages in their own way. We don't get food or clothes, no one even supports the children anymore," she said.
Omar and other families in the refugee camp used to receive help from the charity Association for the Protection of Women and Girls (PROMURA).
But U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to freeze some $60 billion in aid has tightened the screw in countries around the world as have other aid cuts by international donors.
The cuts hit hard in Mozambique, one of the world's most disaster-prone countries where conflict, climate shocks like floods and droughts, political unrest and economic decline have led to a hunger crisis.
Volunteers distribute supplies from the World Food Program to residents after Cyclone Chido in Pemba, Mozambique, in December last year. |
REUTERS
"We had to stop all the activities of the projects that were funded by USAID," said Erasmo Mature, project manager at PROMURA.
Not only are Mozambique residents regularly displaced by cyclones but more than 1.3 million people have fled their homes since Islamic State-linked militants launched an insurgency in Cabo Delgado in 2017, according to aid agencies.
The World Food Program says about 5 million people are food insecure in Mozambique and need urgent support.
"It's dawn, and we have no idea what to give the children to eat," Omar said.
During a visit to Mozambique in February, United Nations officials called for urgent action to address the crisis caused by conflict and the effects of two cyclones — Chido and Dikeledi — in December and January.
"Global humanitarian funding is under immense strain," said Joyce Msuya, assistant Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, during the trip. "We cannot abandon Mozambicans at this critical juncture."
The U.N. children's agency UNICEF has warned of a "children's emergency" caused by cuts to international aid budgets, with funding for Mozambique forecast to fall 20% by 2026.
It says it needs about $43 million this year but so far the budget is only about 35% funded.
In last year's devastating drought, fueled by the El Nino climate phenomenon, crops wilted in the fields. Harvests were dismal, and food prices soared.
In some districts around the capital Maputo, the effects of the drought are still felt by low-income families who depend largely on subsistence farming.
Children pose for a picture in Pemba, Mozambique, in December 2024. |
REUTERS
In the village of Bobole, Teresa Vilanculos said during the most recent harvest this year, she reaped nothing from her field because the seeds had dried up in the baked soil.
She depends upon farming to feed her two grandchildren, and now she has no harvest and no seeds for the next planting season in September.
She used to receive seeds through projects funded by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the African Development Bank and food from the Red Cross but this is not available any more, she said.
She also sells firewood to make ends meet, but it is not enough to pay for food for her grandchildren.
"Here, it's normal for us to go through the day without having something in our mouths," she said.
UNICEF says Mozambican children face "unprecedented crises" with 3.4 million of them needing aid now.
Only 3% of the $619 million the WFP says it needs for Mozambique has been provided by donors this year, and the agency needs $170 million to provide vital assistance over the next six months to prevent a large-scale hunger crisis.
For Vilanculos, support cannot come soon enough.
"I just feel so sorry for my grandchildren, because they're not to blame for any of this," she said.
"Neither am I, but it's hard to see children depending on the solidarity of others to eat."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NHK
a day ago
- NHK
Syrians struggle over whether to go home
Many Syrians who fled Bashar Assad's rule found refuge in Turkey, where many have built new lives. Now, with Assad gone, they face the hard choice of whether to return or remain permanently in an adopted homeland.
The Diplomat
2 days ago
- The Diplomat
No Safe Return: The Case Against Deporting Afghan Refugees
As deportation campaigns intensify across countries like Pakistan, Iran, Turkiye, and parts of Europe, the reality facing Afghan refugees is growing more perilous by the day. Millions who have been forced to flee persecution, war, and systemic injustice face rejection in the places they hoped could be safe havens. Beneath the official narratives of 'stability' and 'return' lies a brutal truth: Afghanistan remains a deeply unsafe country, especially under Taliban rule, and any forced return of refugees constitutes a clear violation of international law and basic human rights. Following the Taliban's return to power in August 2021, Afghanistan has experienced a precipitous collapse on nearly every front: economic, political, and humanitarian. While some officials in host countries attempt to justify deportations by referencing 'improved security' or 'de facto governance,' the facts on the ground paint a starkly different picture. The Taliban have instituted a regime marked by gender apartheid, the systematic persecution of minorities, widespread economic devastation, and the brutal targeting of anyone affiliated with the former government, Western institutions, or civil society. Economically, the country is on the brink of disaster. The withdrawal of foreign aid, which previously constituted over 70 percent of the national budget, has led to an implosion of essential services. The World Bank reported that Afghanistan's GDP contracted by over 26 percent in the months following the Taliban takeover. Inflation has surged, unemployment is rampant, and nearly 15 million Afghans face acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Program. Public services such as education and healthcare, particularly for women and children, have all but disappeared. Women health workers have been pushed out of hospitals; female educators removed from schools; and countless NGOs banned or shuttered for employing women. The humanitarian collapse alone should be enough to halt deportations. Yet it is the deliberate and systemic repression under Taliban rule that makes return not just impractical but life-threatening. The Taliban's policies toward women constitute one of the most extreme forms of gender discrimination seen in modern times. Girls are banned from attending secondary school and university. Women are prohibited from working in most sectors, from traveling without a male guardian, and from accessing public spaces such as parks, gyms, and even beauty salons. Women's visibility in society is not only discouraged; it is criminalized. Numerous cases have been reported by UNAMA and Human Rights Watch where women who dared to protest or speak publicly were arrested, beaten, or disappeared. These policies are not isolated or culturally relative. They represent gender apartheid, a term rooted in international human rights law, which refers to the segregation and exclusion of people based on gender in both public and private spheres. The Taliban's rules are codified and enforced through coercion, and they target not only women in public roles but also their families, colleagues, and communities. Deporting Afghan women or families with young daughters back to this environment is not only morally indefensible – it is a violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Refugee Convention itself. Beyond women, Afghan minorities face equally harrowing threats. Ethnic and religious communities such as the Hazaras, Sikhs, Hindus, and Shia Muslims have long been subjected to violence, but the Taliban's return has intensified their marginalization. Hazaras, in particular, have faced targeted killings, forced displacement, and denial of access to education and employment. The Taliban have consistently failed to protect these groups from attacks by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and, in some cases, have actively participated in abuses. For many of these communities, returning to Afghanistan is equivalent to returning to persecution or even death. The most underreported victims of deportation are those who previously worked with NATO forces, U.S. missions, international NGOs, or Afghan government institutions. Despite promises of relocation and protection, many of these individuals remain stranded in legal limbo across host countries. Those who have been deported often face immediate reprisal. Reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the BBC document instances in which returnees have been detained at the airport, interrogated, and in some cases never seen again. The Taliban's intelligence networks have compiled extensive databases, often with the help of documents and data left behind after the U.S. withdrawal, making it easier to identify and punish those once associated with the former state. Even beyond physical security, the psychological toll of forced return is immense. Afghan refugees — many of whom have spent years in exile — have built fragile yet meaningful lives in host countries. For children born abroad, Afghanistan is an unfamiliar and frightening land. Deportation tears families apart, pushes individuals into poverty, and inflicts trauma that lasts for generations. There have even been cases of suicide and self-immolation among Afghan refugees facing imminent deportation, especially in Iran and Pakistan. These are not isolated incidents; they are the consequence of policies that strip individuals of dignity and hope. From a legal standpoint, such deportations contravene the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and reaffirmed by the UNHCR (the United Nations' refugee agency) and numerous international courts. Non-refoulement prohibits the return of individuals to countries where they face threats to life or freedom. Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, clearly meets this threshold. UNHCR has consistently advised against any forced return to Afghanistan, emphasizing that conditions remain unsafe, and that all states have a responsibility to ensure individual risk assessments before repatriation. Despite this, many host governments continue to push for mass deportations. Pakistan has announced the forced removal of over a million undocumented Afghans, many of whom fled Taliban violence and lack any formal protection status. In Turkiye, Afghan refugees are frequently detained and deported without legal representation. In the United States, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans, which protected them from deportation, is set to end in mid-July following a decision by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) based on the bizarre conclusion that 'Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent [Afghan TPS recipients] from returning to their home country.' Even in Europe, where international law is robust, some states are tightening asylum procedures or quietly supporting 'voluntary' returns under duress. The international community must reject the false narrative that Afghanistan is safe for return. It must resist the political temptation to wash its hands of Afghan refugees by labeling them as economic migrants or 'security concerns.' Instead, it must reaffirm its legal and moral obligations to those who have fled genuine, documentable persecution. What is needed is a comprehensive and coordinated response: immediate suspension of all deportations to Afghanistan; restoration and expansion of temporary protection programs; humanitarian visas for women, minorities, and former civil servants at risk; and increased funding for refugee integration and mental health services in host countries. Host nations must also engage in diplomatic pressure on the Taliban not just to open schools or employ women but to end systemic repression and uphold basic human rights. Refugees are not a burden. They are survivors, educators, artists, professionals, and future leaders. Afghan refugees in particular have demonstrated extraordinary resilience and a commitment to rebuilding their lives in exile. To deport them now is to reward authoritarianism, punish resistance, and betray the very principles that World Refugee Day was created to defend. The world must choose: Will it uphold the dignity of the displaced or participate in their erasure?
Japan Times
24-06-2025
- Japan Times
Hard EU line on migration rose from the ashes of compassion
A decade ago, the image of a 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up dead on a Turkish beach prompted an outpouring of emotion and renewed commitments from European governments to take in refugees fleeing Syria's brutal civil war. Alan Kurdi drowned alongside his mother and brother when a rubber dinghy headed for Greece sank off the coast of Turkey in September 2015. A decade later, thousands of people escaping hardship, conflict and climate disasters still risk their lives on similarly perilous boat journeys to Europe. But the reception they might get has changed. Ten years ago, the European Union vowed as one to prevent further loss of life at sea. Now, keeping migrants out is the key goal, as governments play to right-leaning voters. Rights groups and policy experts say the future for these people is becoming even more precarious as the EU looks set to further harden its restrictions on migration. "All of this started in 2015, and measures are getting even stricter," said Josephine Liebl, head of advocacy at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), an alliance of nongovernmental organizations. Last year, the EU overhauled its rules with a new Pact on Asylum and Migration that aims to limit irregular entry to the bloc and speed the asylum process. "For people arriving in Europe, it will become more difficult to access an asylum procedure in the first place and for that procedure to actually assess their claim fairly," Liebl said. The arrival of an unprecedented 1 million refugees in 2015 sparked a crisis in the EU, which over the last decade has attempted to reform its asylum system to ease the burden on front line states such as Greece and Italy. A member of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency points as his colleague uses binoculars during a patrol near the Albania-Greece border, in Kapshtica near Korce, Albania, in July 2019. | reuters At the same time, anti-immigrant feeling has gained momentum, encouraged by the rise of the far right. The bloc has also increasingly sought to push the problem beyond its borders, making deals with third countries and reinforcing its physical and legal entry points. 'Golden age of solidarity' Even before Kurdi died, his image galvanizing the bloc, a shipwreck that claimed the lives of over 600 people in April 2015 had driven migration to the top of the EU's policy agenda. Then, the bloc's main aims were not far off what they are today: fighting people traffickers, preventing illegal migration and reinforcing solidarity across the bloc. But the EU also pledged emergency aid to front line states receiving the most refugees and tripled its funding of naval missions to strengthen rescue operations in the Mediterranean. In 2020, when the EU reaffirmed its support to border countries, it emphasized bolstering border guard capabilities — not humanitarian aid. Berna Turam, a researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, said there was "a golden age of solidarity" pre-2019, when compassion outweighed anti-immigrant, populist forces. Europeans felt sympathy for refugees camping in their public squares and strong grassroots movements tempered the xenophobic narratives, her research found. "The main change between then and now is the perception of (migrants) as criminals, potential terrorists and people who are going to destroy order and stability," said Turam. "The mood changed because of EU policies criminalizing people at the borders." Turning point In 2016, the EU pledged €3 billion ($3.45 billion) to support Syrians — then also poured money into strengthening surveillance tech and support for its border agency Frontex. Under a deal that year, Turkey agreed to take back migrants and refugees who cross irregularly into Greece from its shores. The islands effectively became a holding pen for refugees and migrants, barred from advancing their EU asylum claims and restricted to a camp life lived in limbo. "Because these people got confined it suggested they were criminals," said Turam. As the EU continued to enlist the help of non-EU countries, plying North African nations with kit and training to keep migrants out, fear spread — and with it, support for political parties that talked tougher on migration. The far-right vote Across Europe, voters have steadily shifted right. Far-right and populist parties have made gains in Italy, Finland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany and Austria, as well as in the European Parliament. In Germany, the most popular country for asylum seekers since 2015, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a record share of seats in February, becoming the biggest opposition party, and the new coalition government has pledged to crack down on migration. "It is normal for people to believe that the far right is doing well because of people's immigration positions, but the far-right vote is about economic insecurity and austerity," said Claire Kumar, who researches public attitudes toward migration at think tank ODI Europe. ODI's analysis of the European Social Survey, carried out every two years to measure beliefs across Europe, found attitudes toward migration as a whole were more negative after the 2008 financial crisis than after the 2015 migration crisis. Nonetheless, the far right's anti-immigrant rhetoric has kept the issue in the limelight, said Kumar. "[The EU] has adopted a narrative based on far-right discourse, and they've amplified it and allowed it to shape their policies and spending," said Kumar. Lawmakers are already proposing harsher policies and considering how to send people back, said Martha Roussou of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization. "Things will change for the worse," said Roussou.
