'No one supports the children' - Hunger plagues Mozambique

• Drought, conflict leave Mozambicans in need
• USAID cuts add to strain on households, charities
• UN warns of 'children's emergency'

MAPUTO - Sinhara Omar, a widow and mother of three children, relies on wild tubers and fruits to feed her family in the refugee camp where she lives in Mozambique's gas-rich and conflict-torn Cabo Delgado province. 

No one comes anymore with food, clothing and blankets to the camp in the city of Pemba, where she has lived since she fled a rebel attack on the northern town of Macomia five years ago.

"For a long time, they used to support us, but now they've left us. Everyone manages in their own way, we don't get food or clothes, no one even supports the children anymore," she told Context.

Omar and other families in the refugee camp used to receive help from the charity Association for the Protection of Women and Girls (PROMURA).

But U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to freeze some $60 billion in aid has tightened the screw in countries around the world as have other aid cuts by international donors.

The cuts hit hard in Mozambique, one of the world's most disaster-prone countries where conflict, climate shocks like floods and droughts, political unrest and economic decline have led to a hunger crisis.

"We had to stop all the activities of the projects that were funded by USAID," said Erasmo Mature, project manager at PROMURA.

Not only are Mozambique residents regularly displaced by cyclones but more than 1.3 million people have fled their homes since Islamic State-linked militants launched an insurgency in Cabo Delgado in 2017, according to aid agencies.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says about five million people are food insecure in Mozambique and need urgent support.

"It's dawn, and we have no idea what to give the children to eat," Omar said.

'Children's emergency'

During a visit to Mozambique in February, United Nations officials called for urgent action to address the crisis caused by conflict and the effects of two cyclones - Chido and Dikeledi - in December and January.

"Global humanitarian funding is under immense strain," said Joyce Msuya, assistant Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, during the trip. "We cannot abandon Mozambicans at this critical juncture."  

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF has warned of a "children's emergency" caused by cuts to international aid budgets, with funding for Mozambique forecast to fall 20% by 2026.

It says it needs about $43 million this year but so far the budget is only about 35% funded.

In last year's devastating drought, fuelled by the El Niño climate phenomenon, crops wilted in the fields. Harvests were dismal, and food prices soared.

In some districts around the capital Maputo, the effects of the drought are still felt by low-income families who depend largely on subsistence farming.

In the village of Bobole, Teresa Vilanculos said during the most recent harvest this year, she reaped nothing from her field because the seeds had dried up in the baked soil.

She depends upon farming to feed her two grandchildren, and now she has no harvest and no seeds for the next planting season in September.

She used to receive seeds through projects funded by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the African Development Bank and food from the Red Cross but this is not available any more, she said.

She also sells firewood to make ends meet, but it is not enough to pay for food for her grandchildren.

"Here, it's normal for us to go through the day without having something in our mouths," she said. 

UNICEF says Mozambican children face "unprecedented crises" with 3.4 million of them needing aid now.

Only 3% of the $619 million the WFP says it needs for Mozambique has been provided by donors this year, and the agency  needs $170 million to provide vital assistance over the next six months to prevent a large-scale hunger crisis.

 For Vilanculos, support cannot come soon enough.

"I just feel so sorry for my grandchildren, because they're not to blame for any of this," she said.

"Neither am I, but it's hard to see children depending on the solidarity of others to eat."

(Reporting by Samuel Comé; editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile and Ellen Wulfhorst.)