Luano district in dire need of relief food

Residents of Chimika and Liteta areas of Chief Chembe in Luano district are said to be in dire need of relief food.

Mwalala Ward Councillor, Benford Katiti   disclosed this to ZANIS today, saying the food shortage in the two areas had become critical and worrisome.

Mr Katiti said that there was need for urgent response from the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) to ensure that relief food is delivered to these areas as an immediate response.

He said that the DMMU had distributed some relief food to the ward few weeks ago, but pointed out that the 200 bags of relief white maize were delivered to Chembe area only.

The councillor said out of the 2,108 population for Mwalala Ward, a considerable number were residents of Chimika and Liteta.

Mr Katiti explained that the hunger situation resulted from several factors such as the flash floods that submerged the crop fields in 2012, as well as the army worms that had ravaged the crops during that year.

He added that the infamous Mailoni brothers had disrupted the security situation in the area before they were finally shot dead by State Security personnel in June 2013.

The civic leader elaborated that people had stopped going to their fields during the period in which the Mailoni brothers terrorised the areas, saying that the three had been linked to a spate of killings in the ward.

Mr Katiti expressed hope that the appeal for relief food would attract immediate attention from relevant authorities, adding that there was need to mitigate the situation as crisis.

Luano District Commissioner (DC), Luka Mwamba, confirmed that last month, the DMMU had delivered 200 bags of white maize in Chembe Chiefdom, saying that a similar quantity was delivered to Mboshya Chiefdom.

Mr Mwamba,, who was amongst the high profile persons who were involved in overseeing the delivery of that allocation, said 300 bags had been delivered to Mboroma Chiefdom during that same month.

He, however, mentioned that his office was making frantic efforts to ensure that the food shortage situation in the valley Chiefdoms of Luano district is addressed as soon as possible.