Cyclone Idai Aftermath: Logistical challenges hinder efforts to avert famine

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02:48

To Mozambique where a looming famine threatens to make an already bad situation worse. More than 700,000 hectares of crop fields were destroyed by flood waters following Cyclone Idai. One of the worst affected areas is Buzi in central Mozambique and as our correspondent Robert Nagila reports, logistical challenges are hampering humanitarian efforts in the area.

Amelia Zinarimwe has toiled on this land in Buzi, for the last 3 decades. She was getting ready to harvest her maize crop, when Cyclone Idai and the floods that followed, destroyed her home and crops.

AMELIA ZINARIMWE BUZI RESIDENT "I am suffering, I don't have any food or a place to sleep. Not even seedlings to replant."

Slowly, she uproots sweet potato leaves, it is all she can afford to put on the dinner table.

ROBERT NAGILA BUZI, MOZAMBIQUE "The residents who own this farm are small scale farmers who depend on their crop for sustenance. It was just about ready for harvest when it was swept away by the floods. A situation replicated across this entire region."

This is all that's left. The remainder, shredded by the raging floods across more than 1.7 million acres. Livestock too were not spared. Aid agencies are warning of a looming famine as a result.

MATHIEU LEONARD FIELD COORDINATOR, RED CROSS "80% of the people in this region are relying on these crops or fisheries which have been basically wiped out."

The UN says more than 867,300 people from affected areas in Mozambique have already received food assistance with a further 10,000 on daily food rations. But it's a race against time. Not everyone in the affected areas in central Mozambique has received humanitarian assistance due to lack of access.

MATHIEU LEONARD FIELD COORDINATOR, RED CROSS "There are a lot of challenges, logistics is a very difficult issue. There are still many areas that can only be accessible by helicopters and not even a landing area. Roads are being cleared since the disaster but there are still a lot of places not accessible."

In places like Buzi, one of the worst affected areas, aid has begun arriving. Thousands of residents from here were evacuated earlier to make shift camps in Biera. For many like Amelia who stayed behind, help cannot come fast enough. It will be the difference between life and death. RN, CGTN, B, M.