‘I ran, my heart was broken’: inside Mozambique’s evolving Cabo Delgado conflict

The oil firms have fled and an Isis-affiliated insurgency has engulfed the region. As foreign troops begin to arrive, hundreds of thousands face desperate journeys to try to find safety

• Photographs by Ed Ram/The Guardian

Pencils scratch as students in year eight feverishly work through an exam paper. At the back of the classroom, Clara Edna Chevambo, 37, a minute figure in hand-me-down clothes, finishes first and hands her paper to the teacher. As she leaves, her 11-year-old daughter is arriving for afternoon class. A vegetable farmer who supported, clothed and fed five children, her mother and her grandmother, Chevambo is now living in a borrowed tent in a camp, one of the ones with something to do to fill a few hours.

I'm in school every day, and I don't want to miss class. I send my daughter to school every day."