Home Mozambique The Missions The Project Comboni Missionaries Contacts & Donations
         
MOZAMBIQUE




Surface: 812,593 sq Km
Population: 19,420,000 (2005 Est.) 
Density per sq Km: 24  
Government: Presidential Republic
Capital: Maputo (population 2,212,000)
Other cities (population): Beira (350,000), Nampula (250,000), Quelimane (230,000).
Ethnical groups: Makua 47%, Tonga 23%, Shona 11% 
Climate: Tropical
Language: Portuguese (official), Swahili and other Bantu dialects
Religion: Animism 60%, Christian 30%, Muslim 10%
Coin: Metical of Mozambique

THE CURRENT SITUATION


Mozambique is a Country of the southern emisphere among the poorest in Africa.

With a poverty rate of 54%, an illiteracy rate of about 60%, and 0.4% of the population receiving a high school education, Mozambique has the lowest human development index (0.246) in Africa, a life expectancy of 42 years, and children mortality rate of 135/1000.

Mozambique is the eight country most affected by HIV. Current estimates indicate a HIV positive rate of ~12%, 65% in adults younger than 30 years of age, and mainly in women. The province of Sofala, where the Missions are located, has the highest infection rate in the country (26%). The average adult lifespan in Mozambique has gone from 46 to 36.5 years of age.

80% of the population lives in the rural areas, where social initiatives and eucation are scarcely supported. Education and health care are more accessible in the urban areas, for which Mozambique is experiencing high rates of urbanization.
Cities are however not yet equipped or ready to sustain such high rates of migration from the rural areas.
top of page

RECENT HISTORY OF MOZAMBIQUE & THE SOFALA PROVINCE

For Centuries, Mozambique has been a colony of Portugal, till the appearence of independence movements in the '50s, to which Portugal responded with a fierce repression. 

The situation escalated into armed war. Portugal turned political power over to the neo-marxist movement of FRELIMO (Liberation Front of Mozambique) in 1974, and left the country in a state of chaos.  

Supported by the Soviet Union, the new state went through a long period of internal conflict, which soon developed into a civil war (1976-1992) against the Occident-supported RENAMO movement (Mozambican National Resistance), which consisted of anti-government guerrillas.

The war ended in ’92 with a peace treaty signed in Rome, and mediated by the Catholic Church. FRELIMO is the party in power as for today.

The Sofala Province, where the four EsMaBaMa Missions are located, was the battle front between FRELIMO and RENAMO, and one of the areas most affected by the Civil war, and today one of the poorest area of the Country. 

The "Beira Corridor"- the road which links Beira port to the neighbouring country of Zimbabwe- was attacked by guerrillas and covered by mines, from which the area is not yet totally decontamined.

The Sofala province, in particular the city of Beira, a very important port in the past, still suffers because of the great destruction during the war years, even though fifteen years have passed since the Peace Treaties. In recent times (2000), the province of Sofala, as well as other provinces in the centre south of the country, was affected by floods that deteriorated buildings, roads, bridges and fields.


In '91, one year before the end of the war, father Ottorino was sent in the region, where -still crossing the firing zone- he started the  reconstruction of Mangunde, today the biggest of the four Missions.

top of page