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MOZAMBIQUE INSTITUTE
(INSTITUTO MOQAMBICANO)
P. 0. Box 20773
Dar es Salaam
Tanganyika
THE CRISIS AMONG MOZAMBICAN STUDENT REFUGEES IN DAR ES SALAAM
The Mozambican people are now engaged in a struggle to free their
country from Portuguese colonial domination.  It will be a difficult
and perhaps a long task.  It has already affected the lives of many
thousands of Mozambican Africans, and it will inevitably involve many
millions more before it is finished.
With the increase in tension and oppression within the country,
many thousands of Mozambicans have fled their homeland for refuge in
Tanganyika and other neighbouring countries.  One group of people who
are deeply affected by the situation are the students.  The Portuguese
have done little to provide education for the young Africans of Mozambique.  In the rare cases when an African has been able to secure
more than the most rudimentary instruction and has achieved the secondary school level, he is closely watched, and often taken out of school
for military training lest he learn more than the Portuguese think it
is good for an African to know.
As a result of this system, large numbers of students, determined
to secure an education, have left Mozambique.  Most of these students
have flocked to Dar es Salaam, where they have applied to the Mozambique Institute for assistance.  The Institute is carrying on  a crash
program of education, in order to train young people who will be
equipped to assist in the administration of a free Mozambique.  However, v/e realize that providing schooling is only part of our responsibility.  If v/e wish to achieve the necessary results and to see our
students progress as rapidly as possible, v/e must insure their health
and well-being, so that they may devote full energy to their studies.
In order to understand the obstacles which v/e face, we would like
to outline the conditions "under v/hich the students are presently living
in two of the refugee camps in Dar es Salaam.  The houses in which they
are lodged are made of mud, with cement floors.  In one house, fortunately, the rook is sound;  the other house leaks.  There is absolutely
no furniture in either of these houses.  The students sleep on the
floors, cushioned, if they are lucky, by a thin straw mat.  There are
a few blankets:  approximately one for every five students.  Both
camps are badly overcrowded.  Nine students sleep in one room which
measures 12 feet by 12 feet.  There are no sanitary facilities which
could possibly be recognized as adequate.  There are 26 students
living in each house, and for their cooking they share one or two
pots and perhaps a dozen plates and cups.  There is no electricity
in either house.  After returning from school in the late afternoon,
and the arduous preparation of their poor dinner with the few utensils
available to them, the light is almost gone, giving them no opportunity
to do their homework.  Neither house has water.  In both cases drinking water must be purchased with the meager funds available for food.
At one house washing water is drawn from a trench nearby, while at the
other house, the students get their v/ashing water from a swamp which
has been condemned by the city authorities.
Under these living conditions it is not difficult to -understand
the medical problems which we also face.  Without exception every
student is suffering from malnutrition, and being in such a run-down
condition, they are exceptionally suseptible to every other sort of
illness as well.  The slim resources of the Mozambique Institute for
medical treatment have almost been exhausted in an effort to assist
tftie most urgent cases.
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