Agriculture production and other livelihoods have been seriously destroyed in Madagascar which could result in a rapid deterioration of the food security situation in the coming weeks if aid is not provided while thousands of the country’s citizens are displaced.
“The affected households are in need of food assistance as well as livelihood support to salvage the agricultural season, including for corn, beans, Bambara peas, market gardening,” the World Food Programme (WFP) said this week in a situational report on the country.
The devastation comes after Tropical Cyclone Freddy, one of the longest-tracked tropical systems of all times, took an unusual path across the Indian Ocean and hit Madagascar again on Monday 6 March 2023, with heavy rain and strong winds.
According to the latest BNGRC (Bureau National de Gestion des Risques et des Catastrophes) report,
Freddy’s return to the west coast has already caused eight deaths and affected 40 375 people, that is 8 896 households, in three regions of Atsimo Andrefana, Androy and Menabe.
A total of 14 502 people have been displaced.
The results of the multi-sectoral rapid assessment estimates that 226 000 people were affected by the first impact of Tropical Cyclone Freddy in the Vatovavy region alone.
“For the immediate response in the south-west, WFP has dispatched 5 metric tons (MT) of high-energy biscuits (HEBs) to Toliara. Severe Tropical Cyclone Freddy has been a presence in the Indian Ocean for a month, travelling more than 7 000 kilometres from near Indonesia on 6 February before eventually wreaking havoc in Madagascar and Mozambique,” the WFP said.
“According to the latest BNGRC report, the return of Freddy on the west coast has caused 8 deaths – including a one-year-old child in Andranovory following the collapse of a house and a two-year old child in Morombe.
“Furthermore, 3 649 huts are flooded, and 1 008 huts are destroyed.
“Tropical Cyclone Freddy has impacted around 241,000 persons in Madagascar. This number is in addition to the 874 000 food insecure people projected for this period in the November 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis – a crisis that has continued since last year’s cyclone season.”
Tropical Storm Freddy has become one of the longest-tracked tropical systems of all time.
