Malawi is facing a severe challenge as it tries to feed its own citizens and refugees fleeing Mozambique’s post-election violence.
Thousands of people have fled Mozambique to Malawi’s southern districts of Nsanje, Chikwawa, Mangochi, Machinga, Dedza and Ntheu, seeking refuge from the nation’s deadly post-election unrest.
The exodus follows the confirmation of the ruling Frelimo party’s win in the October vote by Mozambique’s Constitutional Council last week.
The opposition denounced the result as fraudulent and the top court’s rubber-stamping triggered violent protests, vandalism and looting.
Ellen Kaosa is one of over 13 000 Mozambicans who sought refuge in Nsanje. She and some of her family members fled on the day the court validated the election results.
Kaosa told DW that her group traversed dangerous routes, including across the Shire and Zambezi rivers on a boat, to reach Malawi.
She eventually arrived at an overcrowded emergency displacement camp in Tengani, where she described the conditions as “problematic.”
“Since Monday I have not eaten,” said Kaosa. “I have children, and other women are pregnant, elderly and others with disabilities.”
Dire situation
Kaosa told DW that the congested camp has no toilets, running water or mosquito nets, adding that well-wishers only provided one cup of porridge to some of them upon arrival.
“We are prone to diseases like malaria and waterborne diseases at this time of the rainy season,” she said.
“The whole reason we have fled to Malawi is the safety of our lives, but we plead for help in areas of food, bedding and a place to be accommodated in because it is hot living in tents.”
Other women told DW that they could not find their spouses, fearing they may have taken different routes into Malawi.
“The situation remains dire as these individuals urgently require humanitarian assistance,” Nsanje district commissioner Dominic Mwandira said in a letter to the country’s commissioner for refugees.
Kaosa, like thousands of others who have fled to Malawi and Eswatini Kingdom that borders Mozambique to the south, are hoping for peace so they can return to their homeland.
Prioritise the vulnerable
Human rights campaigners have urged Malawi and the international community to prioritise the well-being of women, the elderly, people with disabilities and children.
Human rights defender Moses Mkandawire noted that Mozambican lawmakers and opposition members, along with the 16-member Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and other stakeholders, should work together to foster dialogue, reconciliation and lasting peace.
“Now what should we do as a nation, what is needed therefore is to ensure that we provide them with food, blankets and other humanitarian kind of support,” he said.
He added Malawi should engage Sadc colleagues in Mozambique for help.
Malawian authorities confirmed they are working with the United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to assess the humanitarian support needs of those fleeing Mozambique.
However, Malawi is already grappling with food shortages following a series of climate-related weather shocks, including devastating floods triggered by Cyclone Freddy in 2013 and drought caused by El Nino last year.
The country is struggling to feed its own citizens as well as around 54 000 refugees — mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi — who are accommodated at the Dzaleka refugee camp in Dowa Districts.
Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee reports that at least 5.7 million Malawians require urgent food aid by April to avoid descending into debilitating hunger and poverty.
Three weeks ago, President Lazarus Chakwera renewed his appeal for international assistance to address severe food shortages affecting more than one quarter of the country’s population of 20 million.
He said the country is currently facing one of its worst food shortage situations in decades.
In rural areas, some villagers were reported to be surviving on wild plants like buffalo beans.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said in a televised national address. “This is why I continue to lobby for international support to address the humanitarian crisis we are facing.”
In March of this year, the president appealed for $200 million in food aid for millions of citizens facing starvation due to a drought linked to the El Nino weather condition.
In his renewed appeal on Wednesday, the President acknowledged the donations that Malawi has so far received from various development partners through the U.N. World Food Program.
He said additional food aid is urgently needed to save lives.
“If you are out there standing with Malawians and giving them the help they need during this crisis, I can assure you that Malawians are honest and fair-minded people who will remember those who are bringing them food in this season of drought and hunger, and who know how to distinguish them from those who brought them nothing,” said President Chakwera.
Malawi’s refugee struggle
The influx of people fleeing the political crisis in Mozambique further complicates the country’s struggles to feed its citizens and refugees simultenously.
To further complicate matters, the UNHCR is struggling to feed existing refugees at Dzaleka due to a funding crisis faced by the WFP, the UN emergency food agency.
Robert Naija, a spokesperson for Nsanje District, told DW that Malawi has provided hundreds of bags of maize flour and beans to feed the refugees.
He added that so far the government has provided shelter to the asylum seekers chiefly in primary schools, however they were being relocated to evacuation centres.
Nsanje resident Malita Banda, who helped some refugees find shelter, noted that while Malawians also face hunger due to El-Nino induced weather, the government should increase its budget to meet the demands of those fleeing Mozambique’s post-election violence.
“My only request is that the Mozambican government should do something as quickly as possible because it is likely that they will have difficulties in finding food to eat on a daily basis,” said Banda.
Frelimo party leader Daniel Chapo is expected to be sworn in as Mozambican president on January 15.
The Constitutional Council said Chapo won the October 9 presidential election with around 65 percent of the vote. Opposition candidate Venancio Mondlane was said to have received 24 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, Mondlane, who says the election results were rigged, said that his fight for a recount is not over and that he will issue a new call for action in the coming days.
