Malaria and cold weather are worsening the suffering of Mozambican refugees who have fled to Malawi to escape violence at home, according to the Malawi director for Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
By mid-February there were more than 6,500 people in Mwanza district’s Kapise camp, 95km south of the national capital Lilongwe, with more arriving every day, Rufini Seva said in an interview, about half the refugees having the mosquito-borne disease. About 60% of the camp’s inhabitants are children, he said, and lacking much clothes they suffer from the cold, especially at night.
The refugees have fled violence and harassment from government soldiers in the coal-rich Tete province, walking for eight hours to reach the camp in Malawi. The border between the two countries is highly porous, according to JRS Southern Africa’s regional director Fr David Holdcroft, who said food and blankets are urgently needed in the camp, and that Doctors Without Borders have set up a mobile clinic there.
There is no local infrastructure to support the camp, Mr Seva said, as poverty is rampant in Malawi, with three million of its 16 million people expected to need food aid this year following both drought and floods last year.