Mozambique: Hunger requires new strategies – CDD

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Mozambique: Hunger requires new strategies – CDD

6:01 CAT | 24 May 2022

FILE - Illustrative photo. [File photo: Helvisney Cardoso via CDD]

The non-governmental organisation Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on sunday (May 15) called for alternative strategies to address the hunger alert among communities affected by armed violence in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique.

“In light of the famine alert in northern Mozambique, particularly in Cabo Delgado, the government must find alternatives to guarantee food assistance to the more than 850,000 displaced people,”, said the bulletin on human rights distributed by the organisation.

This is a warning from the Famine Early Warning Network (Fews network) on the food crisis in northern Mozambique due to a shortage of funds among UN agencies.

According to the CDD, the lack of funds may force UN agencies to provide “selective humanitarian assistance”, prioritising the most vulnerable among the communities affected by the conflict.

“Resource constraints in April and May led WFP to distribute half rations – equivalent to 39% of a 2,100 kilocalorie diet – to about 850,000 people in Cabo Delgado and 74,000 in Nampula and Niassa,” the CDD adds, citing data from that UN agency.

The organisation said that the Mozambican government should define new strategies to deal with the situation.

“The high hunger risk alert should serve as a warning for the Mozambican authorities to define a strategy for food assistance to the displaced, in a context where humanitarian agencies are under financial constraints.,” the CDD concluded.

Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas but has been terrorised since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

There are 784,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and around 4,000 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

Since July 2021, an offensive by government troops with Rwandan support, later joined by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has allowed areas where there was a rebel presence to recover, but their flight has provoked new attacks in other districts used as a passage or temporary refuge.

Source: Lusa