Relocated communities in need of relief food

Cyclone Freddy survivors who relocated to safer places in Nsanje District have appealed to well-wishers to support them with relief food.

The people relocated to their new places in December last year following the order the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) made to people living in flood-prone areas to relocate.

At least 1 800 households from Traditional Authority (T/A) Mlolo relocated to Million Village in Bangula, T/A Mbenje, 5 104 households from Makhanga Island in T/A Mlolo moved to Osiyana in the same area and 250 households from group village head (GVH) Mpomba went to T/A Malemia in the district.

Speaking in an interview yesterday GVH Kalonga from T/A Mlolo said people are living without food as they did not cultivate crops.

She said: “We thank the district council for supporting us with money to construct houses.

“Some of us built decent houses, but the major challenge is hunger. We, therefore, appeal for support as we work towards producing our own food.”

On his part, GVH Beka from T/A Mbenje said they were looking for support to grow crops during the winter.

“We, therefore, need farm inputs,” he said.

Nsanje district disaster risk management officer Daniel Mandala said he was aware of the hunger among the survivors and assured that the council was doing everything to source food.

He said: “We recently distributed cooking oil, pigeon peas and porridge flour courtesy of World Food Programme.

“We also disbursed money from Give Directly to enable the survivors to buy food. Dodma will continue to support them with various food and non-food items.”

The country experienced Cyclone Freddy in March 2023 which displaced 659 278 people and killed 679.