Mozambique’s Cross

The people of northern Mozambique have suffered much in recent years due to the ongoing Islamist insurgency. Salesian missionary, Father Edegard, spoke to ACN about a crucifix made by the local people to represent their suffering.

By ACN Staff

Father Edegard Silva with the crucifix. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)

Since 2017, the Diocese of Pemba in northern Mozambique has been terrorised by an Islamist insurgency. One of the worst attacks carried out during this insurgency was the attack on the Catholic mission of Nangololo, in the Muidumbe district of Cabo Delgado. The mission and many of the homes of the local Catholics were destroyed during the attack. Around the same time, November 2020, over 50 young people were beheaded by insurgents in a nearby football stadium in Muatide.

Many of the local people have been unable to return home and have been forced to live elsewhere in Mozambique. Amongst those forced to leave was Brazilian Salesian missionary Father Edegard Silva. Father Edegard had ministered in the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the west of the Diocese of Pemba before the insurgency.

After the attack in the Muidumbe district, some of the local Catholics recovered wood from the burnt-out houses and carved a crucifix from the wood to represent the community’s suffering. Father Edegard told ACN more about the crucifix:

“The cross was made from the charred wood of the house of one of the Christians, and the figure of Christ is made from broken pieces, because we wanted to recall the situation of so many people, men, women and children, who have been cut to pieces. And so the body – the feet, the hands and the head of Christ – are in separate pieces, as an expression of the reality lived by so many people here in this war zone of Cabo Delgado."

Father Edegar also told ACN about the importance of prayer in bringing peace:

“There is a beautiful aspect to this prayer in that in every Mass there is always a prayer for peace in all of Mozambique and in the rest of the world as well. We don’t ask for peace only in Cabo Delgado, because the reality of war is not something that exists only here. The Rosary opens us up to the whole world – that is what we mean by the missionary Rosary. Whenever we pray it, we ask for peace on every continent, for solidarity for all and for ourselves as well. When we bring our sufferings to our prayer, we want to pray not only for the sufferings in Cabo Delgado, but also for the sufferings of all the world, the crosses of the world.”

ACN is helping the Church in Mozambique to minister and help refugees displaced by the insurgency. Please join us in prayer with our brothers and sisters in Mozambique that peace may soon return to the north of the country.