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MAPUTO – AT least 28 people have been killed and more than 58 800 affected in the latest floods to hit the disaster-prone Mozambique.
Some 66 people have been injured during the crisis affecting regions still recovering from the Cylones Idai and Kenneth early last year.
The Cabo Delgado, Sofala and Zambezia provinces are the hardest-hit but Gaza, Manica, Maputo, Nampula, Niassa and Tete are also affected.
More than 10 200 houses have been damaged or destroyed, including 2 589 completely shattered, and at least 47 schools have been affected.
In Zambezia, the province with the highest number of people affected, flooding since the beginning of 2020 has damaged infrastructure, destroyed crops and led to displacement.
Nearly 2 300 hectares of crops are currently flooded, less than two months before the planned harvest.
In Cabo Delgado, the United Nations for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is concerned the crisis may heighten the needs of the estimated 60 000 people displaced or affected by violence in the province since October 2017.
About 4 000 hectares of agriculture are flooded, electricity poles felled and several bridges damaged.
In Sofala, over 3 000 shelters housing people affected by previous cyclones as well as clinics and hundreds of latrines destroyed.
Mozambique declared a state of emergency at the end of December.
The floods are a major blow to Mozambique, one of several countries affected by years of droughts.
Some 602 people died in Mozambique after Idai struck Mozambique last March. Kenneth killed 52 people when it landed in April.