Facing COVID‑19 in times of armed conflicts in Northern and Central regions of Mozambique
J. public health policy; 42 (3), 2021
Ano de publicação: 2021
Mozambique is facing two great adversaries. One is COVID-19 that claimed 132
confirmed deaths and 15,866 infections in its first round since the first case recorded
on 22 March 2020 until 2 December 2020 [1]. The second is the armed conflicts
in the Northern region of Mozambique perpetrated by armed forces linked to the
Jihadist group known as Al-Shabaab, and in the Central region by self-proclaimed
Military Junta linked to RENAMO (Mozambique Nacional Resistance, the major
opposition party). From October 2017 to October 2020, these insurgents conducted
over 600 terrorist attacks in the Northern and Central districts of Cabo Delgado
province, causing about 2000 deaths, over 60% among civilians [2]. By the end of
September 2020, the violence increased internal displacement to over 300,000 peo
ple, equivalent to 13% of the population [2].