John Hayward 22 Aug 2022
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it received $41 million in funding from the U.S. government for emergency aid in Mozambique.
The WFP also said the United States is buying 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine for shipment to African countries facing drought and starvation.
“Thanks to the recent contributions from the United States, the WFP will be able once more to offer a complete basket of foodstuffs, from October to December, which will avert a humanitarian crisis,” said Pierre Lucas, deputy director of the WFP in Mozambique.
Lucas said another $43.5 million would be needed by March to provide necessary emergency assistance to conflict-displaced persons in Mozambique.
“Without additional new funds, we shall run out of money in the first quarter of 2023, precisely at the start of the period of shortages, when the food reserves become exhausted,” he warned.
Mozambique has been ravaged by an exceptionally vicious Islamist insurgency linked to the Islamic State. The most intense fighting swirled around the gas-rich coastal province of Cabo Delgado, effectively controlled by the insurgents in spring 2021.
In June 2022, the Biden administration announced a $14-million-per-year effort to rebuild Cabo Delgado and other conflict-damaged towns in Mozambique. The program included job training programs intended to thwart the insurgents from recruiting unemployed young people.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting in Mozambique, especially around Cabo Delgado. Some began tentatively returning to their villages in the spring of 2022, but many remain in refugee camps. Even before these displacements, Mozambique was largely impoverished despite revenue from foreign energy companies, which was a major driving force behind the insurgency.
The insurgents have been pushed back from Cabo Delgado with the assistance of troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but the ISIS Mozambique fighters responded by intensifying their attacks on northern villages to prove they remain an effective terrorist force.
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https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2022/08/22/joe-biden-quietly-gives-mozambique-41-million/