Maputo — The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is diverting grain intended for Malawi away from the northern Mozambican port of Nacala to Beira in the centre of the country, or to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

About 3.4 million people are threatened with hunger in Malawi, and the railway from Nacala is the quickest and cheapest way of reaching this landlocked country. The WFP had thus hoped to move much of the humanitarian assistance for Malawi along this line.

But the WFP's deputy director in Mozambique, Georg-Friedrich Heymell, told AIM on Sunday that the UN agency has been forced to divert grain to Dar es Salaam, because the Nacala-Malawi line has been out of service for the past fortnight.

The line was damaged on 5 January at Mutivaze, about 30 kilometres west of Nampula city, by the torrential rains brought by tropical depression "Delfina". The accident at Mutivaze involved a major derailment in which a train driver was killed and four other people were injured.

The line is not expected to be operational again until the end of next week, and the WFP cannot wait that long.

Heymell added that, even without the derailment, the capacity of the Nacala line to move the emergency aid is poor due to a shortage of wagons.

Since November, about 7,000 tonnes of grain for Malawi has arrived in Nacala. The WFP is moving the grain that is warehoused in the port to Malawi by road. "Last Monday we managed to move 183 tonnes to Malawi", said Heymell.

Grain that is still on the high seas will now be diverted, either to Dar es Salaam, or to Beira. From there, the grain will be trucked to Malawi.