Maputo, Mozambique — An estimated 211,000 people who fled from their homes at the height of the floods in central Mozambique are currently housed in 79 temporary accommodation centres in the affected provinces of Manica, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia.
A press release from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Tuesday indicated that over half of the centres are in Zambezia where the drama began in mid-January. Zambezia has 44 accommodation centres housing 78,000 people.
Behind Zambezia comes Sofala with 69,000 people in 17 accommodation centres, followed by the western province of Tete with 51,500 displaced people distributed in 12 centres.
Manica accounts for six accommodation centres with 12,700 people.
UNICEF claims that the number of people have been increasing in the centres "due to the government's policy of limiting aid to those who refuse to leave their homes".
Since February the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed over 2,682 tonnes of foodstuffs, including grain, vegetables, vegetable oil, sugar and salt, to the flood victims.
In coordination with the government, UNICEF dispatched staff to the affected provinces to lend support to ongoing efforts in the areas of health, including vaccination and nutritional assessment as well as providing supplementary diet to 36,000 children.
The nutritional assessments were made necessary by what UNICEF describes as "unfounded but alarming reports on malnourishment that are being published by non-official sources".
These sources were apparently NGOs which did not bother to coordinate with the Health Ministry. The quality of their survey was shoddy, and the findings "impossible", UNICEF said.
Efforts were under way "to encourage NGOs to work in accordance with the Ministry's system".
In the aftermath of the disaster UNICEF appealed for about five million US dollars. Fortunately, it received much greater support than expected.
UNICEF spokesman Jonathan Caudwell told the Mozambican newsagency, AIM, that the agency received over 6.167 million US dollars.
The excess money will be ploughed into health, sanitation and education.
