Access to health care under threat as Renamo continues attacks despite talks

MAPUTO: Despite talks in Maputo between the Mozambican government and the Renamo rebels under international mediation, Renamo gunmen have continued to attack such targets as vehicles, police stations and health units in the central and northern provinces.

The raids on rural hospitals and health centres have come to the attention of a major Western NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW noted that over the past month Renamo has raided at least two hospitals and two clinics.

It warned that “the attacks on the medical facilities, which involved looting medicine and supplies and destroying medical equipment, threaten access to health care for tens of thousands of people in remote areas of the country”.

HRW researchers visited some of the facilities attacked, speaking to witnesses who confirmed that the raids were the work of Renamo.

The most recent such attack took place on August 12, when about a dozen Renamo gunmen entered the town of Morrumbala, in the central province of Zambezia, before dawn. The men first raided a police station, freeing about 23 men detained there, and then looted the Morrumbala rural hospital.

A nurse said the gunmen opened fire at the hospital building. “I was in the emergency room when they fired gunshots through the windows. We were hiding beneath chairs, beds, anything we could find.”

On July 30, a Renamo group attacked Mopeia, also in Zambezia. They raided the house of a local official of the ruling Frelimo party, who is also the chief nurse at the 8 March health centre in Mopeia. When they did not find him, they turned their attentions to the health centre.

A doctor who visited the clinic the following day said the gunmen burnt patients’ medical records and stole vaccines, syringes and medicines. The clinic stores essential medicines, including antiretroviral medicines for HIV/Aids patients, for a population of over 8 000 people.– Independent Foreign Service