Mozambique: in Cabo Delgado, the delicate care of displaced women and children
Audio 01:35
Women and their babies wait for the consultation in Metuge, in Cabo Delgado.
© Bertrand Haeckler / RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
For three and a half years, Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, has been the scene of attacks that have left more than 2,500 dead and 700,000 displaced.
Some are placed in and around Pemba, either with family members or in transit camps.
The NGO MSF has been present in this region since 2019 and works in six structures welcoming displaced people, many of whom are women and children.
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With our special correspondent at Metuge,
Liliana Henriques and Bertrand Haeckler
In Camp 25 de Junho in Metuge, about fifty kilometers from Pemba, the provincial capital, many pregnant women or women with very young children are waiting, sitting on mats for their turn for a consultation which will take place in a tent, with the possible means.
Carolina Lopez, project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders at Cabo Delgado, discusses the health issues of mothers and young children: “
today, we are doing consultations for pregnant women, but we are going to work a little more in depth, because in the camp, there is no motherhood.
The problem is mostly at night and on weekends, for security reasons because there is a curfew.
There is no transport there
”, underlines the MSF project coordinator.
Noting that the use of traditional birth attendants is frequent, Carolina Lopez recalls that “
women are always asked to go to health centers.
We must also give them the means to be able to achieve this
”.
Singing, games, a form of collective resilience to overcome trauma are part of MSF's action with children, the other component being their nutrition which is closely monitored by health promoters and residents of the camp.
"
These health promoters who are part of the camp population have a tool which is the Muac which is a bracelet that we put around the arms of children, which have different colors and which will tell if the child is malnourished. or not.
When they find malnourished children, they refer them to the health center where we work, so that they can have treatment,
”explains Carolina Lopez.
At the end of last month, the World Food Program issued an alert on the risk of food insecurity for almost a million people in Mozambique, the vast majority of the displaced.
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