The governor of Cabo Delgado province, Valige Tauabo, recognizes that the region faces an emergency situation in the face of the humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence.

With this background, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) regrets that bureaucratic obstacles are preventing the arrival of humanitarian aid, which is at a level far below the needs.

In a statement signed by Jonathan Whittall, director of MSF's Analysis Department, the organization says that significant "constraints are imposed on the scale-up of the humanitarian response due to ongoing insecurity and bureaucratic obstacles preventing the importation of certain supplies and the issuance of visas for additional humanitarian workers," which has consequences for displaced people.

Whittall himself, who says he visited Cabo Delgado recently, claims to have seen "how the scale of the humanitarian response in no way matches the scale of the needs."

Emergency Situation

On Thursday, the governor of the province acknowledged that the region is in an emergency situation.

Attending the end of Ramadan celebration, Valige Tauabo, was peremptory in saying that "our province is imminently in emergency."

"It's not just a few districts, it's the whole province that is in emergency," added Tauabo who, while addressing the displaced people who are at the sports pavilion in the capital's expansion zone, promised that "they will not be forgotten, they are displaced until the situation in their districts is stabilized."

The governor reiterated that "while they are here or elsewhere in the province, they are in Mozambique, they are Mozambicans" and called for more solidarity with the victims of the insecurity situation that has gripped the province since October 2017.

Unofficial figures put the death toll at more than 2,000 and more than 700,000 internally displaced.