# Human Rights Watch says children are being pulled deeper into Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado insurgency
Event date: 2025-06-24
At least 120 children have been abducted by insurgents in northern Mozambique in recent days, according to Human Rights Watch, adding a new and alarming dimension to a conflict that has already uprooted more than 600,000 people.
The children were reportedly taken by an Islamic State-linked group known locally as al-Shabab, operating in Cabo Delgado province, where violence has continued since 2017 despite support for government forces from Rwanda, South Africa and other regional partners. The rights group said the abductions reflect a recent surge in attacks and kidnappings and urged the Mozambican government to do more to locate the children and prevent further seizures.
The report describes children being used to carry looted goods and perform forced labor, while some are forced into marriage or used as child soldiers. That pattern fits earlier warnings from witnesses in the province, who said children taken from towns and villages have later appeared in attacks alongside insurgents.
Mozambique’s war in the north has long been shaped by shifting tactics from the insurgents and a strained state response. In 2020, the militants carried out a wave of attacks that included the beheading of dozens of people, including children. The new allegations suggest the group is again relying on abduction as both a terror tactic and a recruitment pipeline.
Human Rights Watch said the resurgence of child kidnappings has been visible in the last two months. The group’s warning comes as Cabo Delgado also faces overlapping pressures from recent cyclones and severe hunger. The Norwegian Refugee Council’s secretary general, Jan Egeland, visited the province this month and called the situation a neglected crisis, saying climate shocks, violence and hunger were taking a terrible toll on the population.
The scale of suffering in northern Mozambique has extended beyond the conflict itself. The United Nations has said the violence has spilled into neighboring provinces. The NRC said more than 5 million people were facing critical levels of hunger, while more than 900,000 were facing emergency hunger conditions.
The insurgency has also remained difficult to contain because of the geography and the fragmented security environment in Cabo Delgado. Government forces have struggled to keep pace with militant attacks, and international concern over the region has frequently competed with other emergencies drawing global attention.
For rights advocates, the latest report underlines how children have become one of the most vulnerable groups in the conflict. Abduction, forced labor, child soldiering and forced marriage each carry different harms, but together they show a pattern of systematic exploitation that can keep communities in fear long after an attack ends.
The government’s response now faces a dual challenge: finding the missing children and limiting the next wave of abductions. Human Rights Watch’s warning suggests that both are urgent, and that the violence in Cabo Delgado is continuing to evolve in ways that deepen the humanitarian cost.
The latest episode also reinforces how the province’s crisis is not only a security problem. It is a displacement emergency, a food emergency and, increasingly, a child-protection emergency.
*Source: AP 5777*
