Mozambique floods displace thousands as aid struggles to reach children, UNICEF says

Weeks of relentless rain have triggered severe flooding across southern Mozambique, submerging homes, cutting off major roads and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee, aid agency UNICEF said on Wednesday (January 21).

Drone footage from Xai Xai on Tuesday (January 20) showed vast expanses of brown floodwater stretching across the lowlands, with clusters of rooftops barely visible above the surface. Entire stands of trees and long stretches of roadway had disappeared beneath the water, offering a stark view of the scale of the disaster.

UNICEF spokesperson, Guy Taylor, said the country was confronting a major flooding emergency after several river basins overflowed, inundating communities across the south. “We know that 600,000 people have been impacted, around 70,000 people forced to flee their homes. More than half of those who have been forced to flee are children, which is of course a particular concern for us as UNICEF,” he told Reuters.

In the town of Manica, displaced women gathered inside a temporary shelter on Tuesday (January 20), searching through piles of donated clothing and food items laid out across the floor. Volunteers recorded each distribution in worn notebooks as women prepared meals for families who had arrived with little more than what they could carry.

Taylor warned that the crisis was compounding existing vulnerabilities in a country where child malnutrition was already widespread. “Flooding is also becoming an annual occurrence. It’s children and families who are hit the hardest,” he said.

The flooding has also crippled transport links across southern Mozambique. Roads leading from the capital, Maputo, were cut after river levels rose sharply, isolating several communities.

In Manica, a helicopter swept low over flooded plains on Tuesday, surveying submerged farmland and scattered treetops that protruded like small islands. On the ground, women chopped spinach and tended to communal cooking pots.

Production: Emidio Jozine, Sisipho Skweyiya/Reuters