“The war started becoming very fast. I used to facilitate therapy for the women, for the community that side. The problems of Cabo Delgado, it happened mostly because of the terrorism that side. In 2024, the war made the people to be dislocated from their locations. In a way that even for sustaining themselves, it was not easy. Even we had sponsorship from SADC, and even the situation didn’t go that easy as it was supposed to go. We also had more attacks. And it made people to dislocate from their locations, making people leave their places to go to safety places. And in 2024, we had women suffering from cyclones. And these cyclones made people to suffer violence. It made to multiply violence in our locations.”

It’s women who hold more of this pain… We usually saw many of our kids being cut. Being violated. Being raped. Even others were killed by snakes during this moment of dislocating from their places. And this made us to have a lot of trauma in our women.

In our safe places, we don’t have a lot of places to allocate a lot of people. We are living in tents. And there is no privacy. Moms and dads and children are sleeping in the same place. Because we are not able to build small houses. So there is sexual exploration in it.

The hygiene of the women is so intimate. And we know when it arrives, the menstrual cycle isn’t easy for us to be hygienic around a lot of people surrounding us. So they normally use traditional methods, such as clothes, so they can be able to hold the menstrual cycle.

We are seeing that women are suffering sexual exploration, regardless of everything they are suffering… there was a dispute with PMI. And some leaders from the community will help distribute food for people that have dislocated. Maybe from this way, people will manage to receive as much food as possible. Because some, their names don’t even appear on the list.

We also have an issue with land. The families that make accommodation, sometimes they don’t have space. And they end up having ownership of our lands. These families… they are also stealing from the women who are dislocated. They are stealing their lands as well.

There’s a lot of raping of children. And there’s not many people being able to save or give security to these women. We have scarcity of healthcare professionals. Many newborns have given birth at home. And we have seen a lot of pregnancies. Most of the women don’t have identity. They don’t have IDs. They don’t have insurance for health. Most of the time when they arrive at their healthcare facility, they end up not being able to get assessment.

Most of these ladies, they end up selling charcoal so they can sustain themselves. Some women are able to relocate from long distance locations. They are able to sustain themselves. But they feel a lot of fear from travelling long distances to a forest, which is also dangerous.

We are using some water in some places so that we can take care of the regime. Some organisations are able to give some pads for the cycle of some women. Some centres are helping women to learn how to produce so that they can be able to sustain themselves.

These are also projects from activists like GBV, Human Rights. But they are not that strong because they are not well-sponsored. There is sponsorship for culture. But the trauma and all the things that women are facing… they suffer from low self-esteem… and feeling dangerous all the days.

They are pleading for the silence of the guns. So they can feel peace. And they want to feel welcome.”