"We cannot live here because the floods come quickly"

Manuel Fanso, 51, went back to the riverbank to earn his living as a fisherman after the floodwaters receded. Up to 300,000 people in river communities throughout central Mozambique were displaced in early 2008, and his family has moved to higher ground.

Floods swamped the country in 2000, 2001 and 2007, and the government has been encouraging resettlement in designated 'safe areas' to avoid further loss of life and expensive evacuation operations when the Zambezi River Basin floods again, an inevitable occurrence according to government projections.

"I have to be here [at the river]. I am a fisherman - that's what I know how to do. I have to take care of my wife, my children and my mother. I only see them once a week because they are far away in Mopeia [a resettlement area, which is] much further from the water.

"Some people come here to buy fish from us, and sometimes I take the fish to [Mopeia] to sell, but it is far.

"We cannot live here because of the flooding. The floods come quickly and we can't build [homes] or farm here because we would lose everything, so we now have a house in Mopeia; here we can only camp.

"Last year the flood was very bad and everything was lost here. People from the government came and warned us that floods were [coming]. At first we did not think it would be that bad, but the water came quickly.

"We were lucky because we had a small [farm plot] further away from the water but there was not much rice there for us to eat; other people had nothing.

"[Flooding] used to happen before but now it happens every year. The rains will come again in November or December, so I don't think we will be able to fish or farm here then. I will stay with my family in Mopeia if it floods, but will always come back to fish again.

tdm/he