In addition to food and clothes, a major part of the relief effort is getting seeds to farmers who had their crops washed out by the persistant heavy rains that created destructive floods throughout Mozambique. Relief officials said if they did not get the farmers back to production, the relief efforts would have to supply food to Mozambique through April of 2001. The next planting is in April of this year with a harvest expected in September. Eighty percent of Mozambique's 20 million population survive through farming. Everybody is keeping a weary eye on this week's weather forecast.
Rain again looms threateningly.
Flood evacuees are being urged not to return to their flooded-out villages yet since there still is the potential for repeat flooding if the forecasted rains are as intense as what the country faced two weeks ago. The forecast rain is for the central areas of Mozambique where the Save River recently overflowed its banks and flooded area villages. The Southern portion of Mozambique is expected to be spared by this spate of rain. American relief teams are working out of Palmeira in central Mozambique, where United States soldiers load helicopters with tons of clothes and shuttled them to Xai-Xai 45 miles north. The need for health care is enormous, even in the relief camps.