Mozambicans returning from Malawi report ‘acute hunger’

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Mozambicans returning from Malawi report ‘acute hunger’

9:08 CAT | 28 Dec 2018

Voa Portugues

Thousands of Mozambicans who have returned in recent months from Malawi refugee camps say they face acute hunger, with the majority resorting to mangoes to survive in villages of Tete Province.

The Mozambicans were refugees in the Luwani camp and have asked for help from the government.

The group is among the last 3,000 Mozambicans who returned between September and October to the villages of origin, almost three years later.

Without resources, having seen the barns destroyed and vandalized by the military during the conflict that forced the exodus to Malawi, several returnees now turn to mangoes and wild fruits to cope with hunger, while waiting for agricultural production in newly cultivated fields.

“We came back and everything was destroyed. We have not produced in the last three years, and now we only have sleeves to eat, “said Tomas Mirione, in an account replicated by several returnees in Ndande.

Food products in an area close to Ndande, the conflict-stricken village, are sold at exorbitant prices and many use household donated items in the refugee camp, such as blankets, buckets and dishes, as a bargaining chip.

“A measure of corn is very expensive, and without many resources, they cannot afford to buy,” said Lúcia Alface, a “widow of the war” who now must feed seven children with mangoes that she picks up in the village, still shadowed by debris.

The former refugees called for the intervention of the Mozambican authorities in the provision of food and in the reintegration of many families, most of whom were affected by the conflict.

Almost everything is missing in Ndande.

The refugees were in the Luwani camp in southern Malawi and were part of a group of 11,000 people that fled Moatize district of Tete Province, central Mozambique, between 2014 and 2015, due to insecurity caused by the Defense and Security Forces and the armed wing of Renamo, the main opposition party.

Source: Voa Portugues