Culturas perdidas pelo El niño
Maputo, 5 Sep (AIM) – Mozambique’s relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD), needs over 200 million dollars to support communities plagued by food insecurity as a result of the “El Niño” weather phenomenon responsible for severe drought in the south and centre of the country.
“El Niño” is a weather phenomenon, arising from anomalous warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that often causes a shortage of rainfall and above normal in southern Africa.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that 1.8 million people, in seven Mozambican provinces, need food aid since they are facing food insecurity as a result of severe drought caused by El Niño.
According to the INGD chairperson, Luísa Meque, speaking on Wednesday in Maputo at the launch of a humanitarian appeal, almost two million people are suffering from food insecurity due to the drought.
“The impact of extreme weather events tends to cause greater concern and four of the country’s provinces are suffering the consequences of El Niño, and the situation could get worse. The El Niño phenomenon is a slow progression and, as it goes on, we feel that the number of people affected tends to increase”, she said.
Meque explained that in order to minimize the problem, 222 million dollars are needed, a sum that the INGD does not have.
“The most affected regions are the central provinces of Sofala and Tete, and the southern provinces of Inhambane and Gaza. We have nine districts in these four provinces that have been hit hardest by the El Niño phenomenon and, in these districts, we have already started implementing early actions”, she said.
However, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) recently said that seven Mozambican provinces need food aid as a result of El Niño, and the field support plan needs funding totalling 170 million dollars to bring aid to 1.1 million people, but up to this month it had only secured 16 million dollars.
(AIM)
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