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Beira, Mozambique. Tens of thousands of Mozambicans are still living in resettlement camps six months after their homes were destroyed by Cyclone Idai, putting children at risk of abuse and exploitation as they struggle to survive.

Despite a massive humanitarian effort that has helped feed, re-school and prevent a cholera outbreak the country is still struggling to recover from Cyclones Idai and then Kenneth that hit the country in March and April.

The cyclones damaged or destroyed more than 277,700 homes and 1,300 schools and displaced hundreds of thousands of survivors. Some 25% of the country’s cereal crop was destroyed just before harvests were due. The knock-on impact of this is that malnutrition rates are expected to rise among children. Food surveys done earlier in the year in both cyclone and southern drought-affected areas found 67,500 children needed treatment for malnutrition. The situation is likely to be worse now as the poorest families struggle to feed their families while trying to rebuild their livelihoods.

World Vision’s response director, David Munkley, said: “Aid responders and the government have done an incredible job keeping people alive and sheltered and have helped protect children and get thousands back to school. But the cyclones destroyed the harvests, homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of the very poorest in a country that already has high poverty rates. As people struggle to find food we know girls and boys will be at particular risk from being forced to drop out of school and into abusive work, or that girls may end up being married off as children or forced to trade in sex to help their families survive.”

Mozambique already has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world with 48% of girls married before 18 and 14% before the age of 15.

He said he was especially concerned about the more than 60,000 people – 30,000 of them children – still living in 50 resettlement sites and who had yet to go home. World Vision is working in a number of them providing education, child protection activities and relief and food aid. But the hunger season was coming and those who were hungry were expected to increase from 1.6 million to 1.9 million people.

Munkley warned: “As people get hungrier and struggle to survive it is the children who have to help families pick up the slack by turning to all manner of dangerous survival strategies. Our job as humanitarians is to make sure children can be children and do not have their futures and their education stolen from them.”

The UN says the international response needs another $397m to respond to the needs of 2 million people over the coming months.

For more information please contact:

Response Director David Munkley: +258 845140842
Response Programme Manager Shelby Stapelton: +258 850435595
Communications Manager Joelma Pereira, +258 2913754