Lucas Matagodi at Lianda IDP camp in Mueda. Lucas Matangodi Shilongo is over 70 years old, but he doesn't know exactly how old. He is in Lyanda IDP camp in Mueda district, far from his home in Nangade district further north.

"If we were at home we would know how to get food, but not here.

Many of Lucas' neighbours in the camp are also from Nangade. The war there forced thousands of people to flee. Lucas says that in one of the attacks, insurgents killed his wife, one of his children and another of his grandchildren. He cries when he remembers them, especially his wife. He misses her. He is devastated.

"I dream that I'm running away and falling. I dream that I am being chased," he says.

Lucas lives with his sister and other relatives in one of the windowed cottages built in this part of the camp. His daughter cooks with her granddaughter inside the hut. In the next room, where the conversation takes place, there is a tin roof and an empty sack of rice from India. Lucas recalls the attack on his village.
"They came in and burnt the houses, they kidnapped many people, I was sleeping in the forest, because they had already tried to attack twice and we were waiting for them, the people had left their houses pre-emptively and were mostly sleeping in the forest on the day of the attack. They attacked during sunset. They burnt houses.

It was not then that his wife, son and grandson were killed. It was in another attack. Many of the camp residents report fleeing several villages and suffering several attacks along the way.

"Before that attack, my wife went to another village to visit my son, and on the same day the insurgents attacked, captured the village and killed my wife, son and grandson. The other grandchildren fled and they were the ones who informed us".
Lucas went to the mobile clinic set up by Médecins Sans Frontières in Lyanda camp today for the first time to seek relief. He needs psychological help.
"On a daily basis, I think mainly of my wife. I am alone. Sometimes I cry. When I wake up, I'm no longer sleepy and I start to think. I feel bad for my grandchildren, I don't want to talk to them about what happened. I don't have any more worries, because I have the support of my grandchildren. What I think about is that I will never be able to see my wife again.
"For the moment I don't think about going back. I want to stay because I am safe here, what worries me is only the food, because it is not enough".

Mozambique

Lucas Matagodi visits MSF's mobile clinic in Lyanda camp for the first time, seeking psychological assistance. Mozambique, May 2023.

In Mozambique we are responding to emergencies including disease outbreaks, providing care to people with advanced HIV, while also working in the conflict-ridden Cabo-Delgado province.

In Beira, we offer sexual and reproductive health services, including HIV testing and treatment, for sex workers and men who have sex with men. In Nampula, MSF teams provide preventive measures and treatment for selected vector-borne, water-borne and neglected tropical diseases under a Planetary Health lens.

Meanwhile, a slow burning conflict in Cabo Delgado province, in the country’s northeast, continued through 2022, with hundreds of thousands of people attacked and left homeless or displaced. In support, we provide medical and mental health care, and support health and cholera treatment centres through mobile clinics. In addition, our teams provide water and sanitation support as well as relief items such as hygiene and cooking items for those in displaced people’s camps.

Our activities in 2025 in Mozambique

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2025.

706

Staff in 2025 (full-time equivalent)

€18.5 M

18.5M

Expenditure in 2025

1984

Year MSF first worked in the country

MSF in Mozambique in 2025 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continued to respond to a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Mozambique, driven by escalating armed violence, recurrent climate shocks, and widespread disease outbreaks.

Country map for the IAR 2025.

As the conflict in Mozambique entered its eighth year, attacks by Islamic State - Mozambique intensified in Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces, triggering widespread fear, and three waves of displacement between July and December, during which around 300,000 people fled their homes.* Many were displaced multiple times, sometimes returning to camps they had left years earlier. The high levels of insecurity put an additional strain on the already fragile health system, further reducing access to essential services for displaced people and host communities.

MSF conducted a range of activities in 2025 to fill gaps in healthcare. Across all our projects and emergency responses, we ensured the integration of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria, leading causes of death in Mozambique.

Cabo Delgado remains the epicentre of the crisis. In Macomia, we resumed activities we had suspended following an attack in 2024, relaunching mobile clinics and constructing what is now the only operating theatre in the district at a Ministry of Health facility, bringing care that would otherwise be two hours away. In Muidumbe and Nangade, we worked in local health centres and trained community health workers. In Mueda, we provided medical staff, supplies, and technical assistance to deliver emergency maternal, paediatric, neonatal, and mental health care, as well as referrals, at the rural hospital. In Palma, we temporarily suspended our mobile clinics and outreach activities during peaks of insecurity. Likewise, in Mocímboa da Praia, one of the conflict’s hotspots, we ceased operations in September due to attacks and threats. We gradually resumed work in December, focusing on critical hospital services, mental health, and outreach.

Mental health care remained a core component of our work. As well as conducting individual and group consultations, we trained community members to increase awareness and acceptance, and health staff to improve referral systems.

Early in 2025, we wound up our emergency response to Cyclone Chido, which had caused major damage to health facilities and water systems, and spikes in malaria and diarrhoeal diseases. Our teams supported recovery by restoring essential services and offering psychosocial support.

In Beira, Sofala province, we handed over the sexual and reproductive health project that we had been running for over a decade to the Ministry of Health, marking the end of our major contributions to HIV prevention and treatment in the area.

In June, we also concluded regular activities in Nampula, where we had worked to improve care for malaria and neglected tropical diseases, including surgery for hydrocele, a complication of a tropical parasitic disease called filariasis, which causes an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the testicles. We remain ready to provide support during new emergencies.

Between July and December, in Chiúre, Mueda, Mocímboa da Praia, and Eráti districts, MSF provided medical consultations, maternity care, screening for malnutrition, mental health support, referrals, and water, sanitation, and hygiene services to displaced and host communities. In addition, we supported the Ministry of Health to tackle several cholera outbreaks across Cabo Delgado and Nampula.