Mozambique: Accesses closed and food crisis in Palma – MediaFAX report

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Mozambique: Accesses closed and food crisis in Palma – MediaFAX report

5:09 CAT | 02 Feb 2021

FILE PHOTO - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Pinnacle News]

Scarcity, sky-high prices and hunger beset the town of Palma. Despite the cry for help, neighbouring Tanzania is preventing products from entering Mozambique.

The district of Palma, and particularly its district headquarters town, continues to face a situation of genuine food scarcity, with those traders still with stock to sell charging speculative prices that leave the locals completely desperate.

With each passing day, the situation seems to be reaching greater levels of unsustainability, at a time when the only land route for resupplying Palma is impassable for security reasons.

That road is the one from Nangade to Palma, through Pundanhar Administrative Post. Local sources told mediaFAX that, up until Saturday, the route remained impassable, with dozens of food trucks stuck in Nangade-headquarters village awaiting objective indications that they could proceed to Palma without being ambushed by the terrorists, who seem themselves to be starving and prepared to ambush any food transports.

Currently, mediaFAX learned from Palma resident Juma Chawal, access to Palma is still closed, both by sea from Mocímboa da Praia and by land via Pundanhar.

With roads closed and shelves emptying, price tags indicate the following: 25kg of rice – varies between 2,500 to 3,000 meticais according to the quality; 25kg of flour – 2,000; cooking oil – 190 to 200 per litre; 1kg of sugar – 120 to 130; 1 kg of rice – 220; dry cassava – 100 per kg; gasoline 1l – 500.00Mt; flour 25kg – 2,500; potatoes – 150 per kg.

Several cargo trucks have been ambushed on the Nangade-Palma road in the last two weeks and looted before being set on fire.

Tanzania prevents food from passing

Although the presidents of Mozambique and Tanzania recently posed for photographs to demonstrate the resumption of historic good relations between the two neighbours, the reality on the ground belies this idea.

With supplies unable to pass via Pundanhar, Tanzania is seen by traders as an alternative route for restocking.

But Tanzania is not allowing food products to cross the border from Namoto into Mozambique. Sources in Palma say local traders are at a loss to explain the prohibition, and the Tanzanian authorities are not offering any explanation.

One trader was detained for two weeks after trying to transport food products from Tanzania to Mozambique, and ordinary Mozambicans have been prevented from entering Tanzania.

From the village of Palma to the border at Namoto is approximately 40 kilometres, on unpaved land. From there, travellers use a barge to enter the border province of Ntwara on the Tanzanian side.

Source: MediaFAX