Acute food insecurity could persist until January 2025 in areas affected by the El Niño phenomenon and armed conflicts in Mozambique, according to the Fews Early Warning Systems Network.
‘Acute food insecurity could persist between October 2024 and January 2025 in areas affected by drought during the 2023-2024 agricultural season and in areas affected by armed conflict in the north of the country,’ reads the latest report from the Fews network, consulted this Monday, 9 December, by Lusa.
The network, which brings together North American organisations, places the Central and Southern regions and the province of Cabo Delgado – which has been facing an armed rebellion since October 2017 – in the ‘crisis phase, level three’ of food risk, on a scale of one to five, from minimum risk to the most serious, the latter pointing to a lack of food.
‘This is due to a combination of factors, including the start of the lean season in October, below-average harvest in 2024, limited income-generating opportunities due to increased competition and above-average staple food prices,’ the report states.
According to the Fews network, these conditions will make it difficult for ‘poor and very poor families’ with below-average purchasing power to access food.
‘In Cabo Delgado, certain areas that have been receiving regular humanitarian food assistance could improve to stage two of the acute food insecurity classification,’ it concludes.
Around 4.8 million people need humanitarian assistance in Mozambique, and 4.04 billion meticals (64 million dollars) are needed to meet the needs, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) recently estimated.
‘The multiple crises currently affecting the country – conflict, drought and public health emergencies – are putting a strain on humanitarian resources. Some 4.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance (10 per cent of them people with disabilities), including 3.4 million children,’ reads a statement from Unicef.
In September, the United Nations (UN) said that nearly two million people were in need of humanitarian assistance in the country.
‘This year, Mozambique was affected by drought induced by the El Niño phenomenon during the 2023-2024 season. It is estimated that around 1.8 million people could face food insecurity between next October and March 2025. Faced with this situation, the need for humanitarian assistance for the affected communities has been increasing, especially in the central and southern regions of Mozambique,’ explained the organisation.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by global climate change, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
