Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa covering President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. government, UN, IMF, World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington and New York.
Amid devastating violence in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has begun providing vital humanitarian relief supplies in a series of shipments to help meet the urgent needs of people forcibly displaced from their homes.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled fighting in Cabo Delgado, where ISIS-affiliated terrorists brutally killed, maimed, and abducted civilians, destroyed infrastructure, and displaced more than 700,000 people.
The assistance will provide emergency shelter supplies to approximately 20,000 displaced families, as well as blankets and kitchen sets – shipped by sea from USAID warehouses in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Pisa, Italy.
The United States, through the State Department, will also provide $700,000 in new Fiscal Year 2021 humanitarian assistance that will help the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) provide shelter, blankets and mattresses, as well as mental health and psychosocial support for many of the 28,000 people newly displaced by the Palma attacks.
The United States is the single largest donor of humanitarian assistance in Mozambique. the current aid adds up to more than $82 million in humanitarian assistance in Fiscal Year 2020.
The United States is responding to this crisis with food, household items, shelter, and hygiene kits for approximately 250,000 displaced Mozambicans in Cabo Delgado and neighboring Nampula and Niassa provinces.
“These funds also supported the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) to transport by air, sea, and road relief items and humanitarian workers to difficult to reach Mozambicans throughout Cabo Delgado,” USAID said in a statement.
The U.S. government says it remains extremely concerned about the continued deterioration of the humanitarian situation and urges other donors to step up to provide much needed support to save lives.