Number of people in need of relief food to increase to 2.3m in October

The Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit says it anticipates the number of people in need of relief food to increase to 2.3 million in October from the current 1.7 million being serviced in 53 districts.

DMMU National Coordinator Chanda Kabwe SAYS in servicing the increased number of people and addressing nutrition challenges, DMMU will start giving beans and Kapenta and increase the allocation of mealie meal to 200 metric tonnes per month to people in Lunga in Luapula province, Gwembe in southern Province and Shangombo in Western Province.

Mr. Chanda explains that the three areas have been picked as the hunger situation in these areas is categorized stage 4 which is the emergency stage and over 450,000 people are involved.

He has further disclosed that Western province has the highest number of people in need of relief food at 447,000,while Southern Province is second with 438,000 people, Northern province  has 393,000,Eastern 137,000 people and central has the lowest number at 97,000 people.

Mr Kabwe says so far government has distributed over 50,000 metric tonnes of relief food to various communities across the country.