New York, US - The World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday said it was distributing food rations in Mozambique, where an estimated 70,000 people were in urgent need of assistance after the country was pounded by two tropical storms.

In a statement made available to PANA in New York, WFP said that it began the distrubutions on Thursday in flood-hit Zambezia province, where almost 6,000 people in the province’s Maganja district were receiving rations of flour and other basic supplies to last a month.

It reported that it eventually hoped to provide emergency food rations to 65,000 people across Zambezia and another 6,500 in Maputo province, which surrounded the country’s capital.

WFP also stated that it was working with other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help the Mozambican Government to assess the scale of the crisis and the needs of those affected by the storms and subsequent floods.

'At least 32 people are reported to have been killed since tropical storms Dando and Funso struck Mozambique last month, and about 100,000 hectares of farmland are no longer in use,' it said.

WFP also added that there were fears that people living in storm-affected areas would have no crops to harvest, jeopardizing their food security in the coming months.

Pana 04/02/2012