The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has opened a mobile clinic in Mararange community to attend to more than 54,000 people displaced by the armed conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province.

Mararange is one of the many districts in Cabo Delgado affected by the armed conflict in the country, where is a shortage of health-care services.

It is understood that the mobile clinic can accommodate an average of 200 people per day, providing both treatment and prevention of diseases.

Tania Bacar is one of the thousands of displaced persons and residents in Mararange and seven other nearby villages.

‘We would go to Mirate (in another village) to receive care. We suffered a lot because we would set off in the morning and not get back until the end of the day’, the ICRC quoted her as saying.

‘Now, as soon as we feel any pain, we come here [the mobile clinic] and they take care of us’, she added.

According to the humanitarian organisation, the health-care facility is just a few minutes walk for those who live in the Mararange IDP centre and other neighbouring areas.

‘The creation of this mobile clinic represents a positive milestone, as can be seen by how many patients come to seek medical attention.

‘One of the biggest impacts is that people no longer have to travel long distances, and the other is that it has eased pressure on the Mirate Health Centre’, the clinic’s general practitioner, Valério Zacarias, said.

Cabo Delgado, one of Mozambique’s poorest regions, has been embroiled in a violent insurgency waged by the Ahlu-Sunna Wa-Jama’a (ASWJ) since 2017.

The conflict has claimed thousands of lives, displaced hundreds of thousands and severely impacted health, water, and shelter facilities and access to food in the region.

The opening of the Mararange mobile clinic is part of an integrated ICRC response to improve access to health care for people affected by violence in Cabo Delgado.

Photo source: UN Mozambique/Helvisney Cardoso