Pope donates 100,000 euros for Mozambique unrest victims

Women from the Nacongolone community, 5 kilometres from the town of Macuna, wait at the clinic in Macuba, Zambezia province in the north of the country, Mozambique, on November 19, 2020. Pope Francis has donated 100,000 euros to a fund helping hundreds of thousands of people displaced by a violent Islamist insurgency ravaging northern Mozambique, a bishop said Monday. (AFP)

(AFP) - Pope Francis has donated 100,000 euros to a fund helping hundreds of thousands of people displaced by a violent Islamist insurgency ravaging northern Mozambique, a bishop said Monday.

The fund was set up by Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa, who is in charge of the troubled northern Cabo Delgado province, to help victims of the violence that has displaced half-a-million people and claimed some 2,000 lives.

"Pope Francis made a donation of 100,000 euros ($ 120,000) and the bishop (Lisboa) is hoping to build clinics," Jose Luis Ponce De Leon, the bishop of Manzini told AFP Monday.

Pope Francis visited Mozambique in September last year.

Jihadist attacks began in 2017 and have since spread to massive swathes of the province.

Lately the attacks have increasingly been claimed by the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), affiliated with the Islamic State group.

© Agence France-Presse