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afrol News, 4 March - The current season's rainfall, from October-January, was the lowest in more than 50 years in Maputo. Humanitarian agencies warn this year's drought in Mozambique is much more severe than last year's, and is similar in spatial extent and severity to the 1991/92 drought. While the drought and food crisis in most parts of Southern Africa is set to ease somewhat in the coming months, southern Mozambique is facing yet another year of very high food insecurity. A crop failure is expected in large parts of the country. The US agency Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS NET) has issued a food security warning for Mozambique, indicating that certain population groups are now, or are about to become, highly food insecure. - These groups will be forced to reduce consumption, dispose of their productive assets and take increasingly irreversible actions that undermine their future food security, FEWS warns today. The areas of most immediate concern are remote parts of Gaza, Tete and Inhambane Provinces. Humanitarian organisations and others working in countryside Mozambique have provided reports on the food security situation in the affected zones. "The situation is becoming critical in areas where crop failure is combined with a lack of diversity in access to food and income, such as the interior of Gaza and Inhambane and southern Tete," FEWS assesses. In southwest Tete, in the centre-interior of Mozambique, reports of hunger-related deaths in January sparked several emergency assessments, which resulted in immediate increases in food aid deliveries for general and supplementary feeding. - Pockets of food insecurity exist in other areas where crops have failed, FEWS reports. Although most people had alternative sources of food and income, "the poorest households may be expending their remaining resources quickly," the US agency warns. New season maize was however starting to enter the market in a few places. But retail prices remained higher than in previous years, although prices should have started to decrease in the coming months. The delayed price reductions may be understood as a response to the failing rains over southern Mozambique this season. At the Maputo station, the current season's rainfall from October-January was the lowest since modern records had started in 1951/52. Last season's drought in the south and central regions resulted in an estimated 650,000 people requiring emergency food aid and unacceptably high malnutrition rates in many areas. Even though last year's drought caused these serious outcomes, it had not been a severe drought in historical terms. "This season's drought, however, is very severe, in both historical and absolute terms, and the consequences are likely to be much worse than last year," FEWS concludes. Further, the tropical cyclone Japhet made landfall on 2 March, with the eye of the cyclone passing near Vilankulos District in Inhambane Province. Damage assessments are still underway, but preliminary reports indicate many traditional houses and trees have been destroyed and several injuries have occurred. The storm is expected to dissipate over land as it heads across southern Sofala and Manica toward Zimbabwe.
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