Hungry people flee from drought-stricken parts of Sofala to accommodation centre

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Hungry people flee from drought-stricken parts of Sofala to accommodation centre

6:56 CAT | 03 May 2016

MMO / Students attending a class in Inhazonia camp

Hundreds of hungry Mozambicans are abandoning their homes in drought-stricken parts of the central province of Sofala and moving into the neighbouring province of Manica in search of food, reports the independent television station STV.

Thus the Manica authorities have been obliged to set up an accommodation centre at Inhazonia for more than 400 people (61 households) who have walked across the provincial boundary from the Sofala district of Maringue.

Tents have been distributed, but there are only enough for 47 households, while the others have had to build their own shelters, which they have covered with grass for lack of tarpaulins.

The country’s relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) has provided blankets and some basic foodstuffs, such as maize flour and beans. This food is insufficient and reporters came across some of these people displaced from Maringue gathering wild fruit for their sustenance. Inhazonia peasant households have also offered sweet potatoes to the newcomers, and a local businessman has donated some chickens.

The INGC has not distributed salt or vegetable oil. The Barue district permanent secretary, Fernando Conde, said that salt is being arranged, but the government has no money to purchase vegetable oil.

Clean water is in short supply in the Inhazonia centre, and lack of decent sanitation is also a headache. As for medical care, the nearest available is at the rural hospital in the Barue district capital, Catandica, which is eight kilometres from Inhazonia.

There is a school in the centre teaching first grade, and one teacher working under difficult conditions. Since none of the pupils speak the country’s official language, Portuguese, the teacher has no option but to use the local language, Sena, in classes.

“Teaching and learning become very complicated when the pupils only speak their local language”, he told the reports.

More people from Sofala are arriving by the day at Inhazonia, fleeing from hunger and abandoning fields that have shrivelled in the drought.

Source: AIM