Sharp increase in those in need, claims govt

Mozambique's national disaster agency claims the number of people who will need food aid in the country over the next few months has risen to 1.4 million. Rogeria Manguele, INGC (National Disaster Management Institute) spokesman, told IRIN on Monday that the sharp rise from the previous figure of about 600,000 was due to poor rains over the planting season in late 2002. Low rainfall had compounded the effects of a drought which had decimated the previous harvest in food insecure southern and central Mozambique. A further complication was that Mozambique was still battling to come to terms with the effects of wide-scale flooding in 2000 and 2001, Manguele added. Of the thousands of people displaced by the floods, some had returned to their home areas but a large proportion had been resettled. However, he noted that these people still required assistance. Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme said it was still awaiting the results of the latest vulnerability assessments, which were conducted in November and December last year. UN agencies estimate a total of 14.4 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe face starvation due to the combined effects of drought and poor government policies.