"We know that the recruitment of boys and adolescents, some of them very young, aged 14, 15, 16, is also happening. It is obvious that these young boys are under coercion. If they refuse to join the group, they could be killed," he added.
Rangel, the parliamentary deputy and vice president of the Christian Democrat Party, had high praise for the Bishop of Pemba for his efforts to raise awareness and appeal for the needs of the Cabo Delgado region, calling Lisboa a "great apostle of this cause."
"We try to be the voice of the voiceless by telling the world what is happening in Cabo Delgado," Lisboa told Vatican News on July 8.
"The Church has been working with families in the villages to support the people who are suffering the attacks, especially those who have lost everything," he said.
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Pope Francis addressed the suffering in the Cabo Delgado region in his Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi message, asking for prayer for "people who are going through serious humanitarian crises, such as in the Cabo Delgado region, in northern Mozambique."
During his visit to Mozambique last September Pope Francis urged Church leaders in the country to seek solutions through dialogue, rather than conflict.
"The Church in Mozambique is invited to be the Church of the Visitation," Pope Francis said in the capital, Maputo, Sept. 5.
The Church in Mozambique, he continued, "cannot be part of the problem of rivalry, disrespect and division that pits some against others, but instead a door to solutions, a space where respect, interchange and dialogue are possible."
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.