By Jamal Jamal
LILONGWE, Malawi (AA) - The Catholic Church in Mozambique has decried the growing number of child kidnappings in conflict-hit Cabo Delgado province, calling for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid for displaced communities in the region.
Father Kwiriwi Fonseca of Pemba Diocese told reporters Monday that insurgent attacks in the gas-rich province have led to a wave of kidnappings of children and displacement.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), at least 120 children were abducted by insurgents in the province between January and May 2025 and they are being used either as human shields, for forced labor or being forced into marriage.
“Something urgent must be done to help these children. These kidnapped children must be found and returned to their parents. These children must be found wherever they are, because they deserve to dream. These children deserve to have a better future,” said Father Fonseca.
The humanitarian organization Save the Children has described the situation in the region as “harrowing and requiring an urgent response.”
Ilaria Manunza, Save the Children’s Country Director in Mozambique, told Anadolu that the fresh attacks represent a major setback in efforts to rebuild the lives of the children and their families in the province who have had to live through conflict for around the past eight years.
“The distress these children continue to endure is unimaginable. The conflict must end immediately so that these children can have their childhoods back,” Manunza said.
According to Father Fonseca, the crisis in the province “risks being forgotten by the international community.”
“The humanitarian crisis caused by this conflict, which has lasted for almost eight years, tends to be overlooked and silenced. We have seen attacks worsening the crisis, houses getting burnt, children abducted and displaced by the war. I’m here to vehemently denounce this war, which must end, because we want peace. We don’t want war,” he said.
“This senseless war brings only death and takes what little hope the people and especially the children have,” he added.
He called for humanitarian aid for the displaced communities in the region, warning that “unless there is urgent aid, the situation is likely to get out of control.”
Escalating attacks that began on July 20 this year have killed 30 people and displaced 60,000 others in the province, half of them believed to be children, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The conflict in the province has caused 6,000 deaths since October 2017 and has displaced over one million Mozambicans. According to the United Nations, one million people require emergency assistance just to survive.