The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the historic drought affecting the southern African region has put more than 26 million people in a situation of acute food insecurity, revealing that 300 million dollars (18.9 billion meticals) are needed to provide emergency aid to the countries concerned, including Mozambique.
In a report carried by RTP Notícias, the director of the WFP in Mozambique, Antonella D’Aprile, said that in addition to Mozambique, Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are also on the list of those most affected.
She explained that ‘in many places, farmers who should have sown at this time of year were unable to do so due to a lack of resources or water.’
‘If you travel around the country, all you see are empty fields. The situation is truly disastrous and support cannot wait, the time is now. People have little or nothing to eat, there are thousands of families in Mozambique who are surviving on just one meal a day,’ she said during a conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In August, the World Food Programme made it known that it needed funding of more than 170 million dollars to operationalise the plan to support people affected by drought and food insecurity in Mozambique, pointing out that, as of July, it only had 16 million dollars.
The United Nations agency revealed at the time that the money would be used to provide assistance to more than 300,000 people, guaranteeing the provision of school meals, nutrition activities to increase the immunity of pregnant women and means of subsistence in the face of severe drought.
Data released by the organisation in a report indicated that 1.8 million people need help in seven Mozambican provinces, and that the percentage of the population at risk of food insecurity has risen to 33% due to the drought.
The organisation explained that the situation is caused by the ‘El Niño’ climate phenomenon, which is affecting several countries on the African continent, and in the case of Mozambique in particular, the number of people at risk of food insecurity has increased fourfold since 2023.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
