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Catholic Missionary Nun in Mozambique Thanks Pontifical Charity for Being “a hand of God” During Disasters

Sr. Aparecida Queiroz, visiting people in Diocese of Pemba. Credit: ACN
Sabrine Amboka

By Sabrine Amboka

Maputo, 19 March, 2025 / 3:39 pm (ACI Africa).

From terrorism to natural calamities such as cyclone, Mozambicans have experienced a lot of devastation in the recent past. But through the devastation, the help of the Catholic charity and pontifical foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, has been significant, a Missionary Nun serving in the Southern African nation has said, describing the charity foundation as being the “hand of God.”

In a Wednesday, March 18 ACN report, Sr. Aparecida Queiroz from the Congregation of the Daughters of Jesus, who currently works in the Catholic Diocese of Pemba, Cabo Delgado, thanked the charity foundation for the foundation’s continuous support to the people of God in Mozambique during challenging times.

“In this context of suffering, ACN’s help has been like the hand of God, bringing relief and saving lives,” Sr. Aparecida said.

She said that thanks to ACN, people “have access to the sacraments, to the Eucharist, but also to material aid, such as food and hygiene products.”

“This is a type of assistance which is transformative, which helps them grow, and empowers them,” she added.

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ACN reports that Sr. Aparecida arrived in Cabo Delgado seven years ago, just as an Islamist insurgency was beginning to terrorize the province.

“Since then, she has seen the insurgency grow in violence and reach, leaving in its wake at least 5,000 dead,” the charity foundation reports in reference to the catholic Nun.

In the ACN report, Sr. Aparecida speaks of the challenges facing the region at the moment. “Imagine that you are in your house after a day’s work and suddenly a group of armed men breaks in, kills your children and kidnaps members of your family, forcing you to flee through the bush for days, scared, hungry, thirsty, and in terrible anguish. Well, that is the pain that thousands of our brothers and sisters in Cabo Delgado are experiencing.”

In Cabo Delgado, she says, people have lost everything: their homes, family members, places of worship, their identity.

Others, the Catholic Nun says, have had to flee “not once, but many times.”

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Cabo Delgado is the northernmost province of Mozambique. Historically poor and neglected, according to ACN, the population in the province lives mostly from subsistence farming, which is disrupted at times of instability.

“The constant mobility, the coming and going of people who are just trying to survive, is at the root of this cycle of poverty. Children are unable to go to school, there is no access to health, families can’t farm, and there is terrible hunger,” says Sr. Aparecida.

The Religious Sister has also witnessed calamities such as the devastation of cyclone Chido that hit Cabo Delgado province in December last year, killing 120 people and injuring more than 800.The cyclone is said to have affected 400,000 people.

More recently, Bishop Alberto Vera Aréjula of the Catholic Diocese of Nacala in Mozambique recounted the terrifying events of March 10 when Cyclone Jude hit several districts in the southern African country, leaving a trail of destruction.

Fortunately, Sr. Aparecida says, ACN has been present in the province throughout the bad times.

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According to the Ca5tholic Nun, the foundation’s aid has translated into food for over 2,000 families, besides allowing those on the ground to provide religious services to communities that the Church had lost access to.

 “Through ACN, the hand of God is returning life to these people, and that is why we cannot stop, we must continue to be the face of Christ in this context of despair,” she says.