ZONA VERDE, 24 January 2008 (IRIN) - Domingos Damião lost his crops and his house when the Zambezi River in central Mozambique flooded in 2007. He heeded government advise and began building a permanent home in the resettlement center of Zona Verde, but sowed new crops in the fertile flood plain. This season's flooding has again robbed him of his food reserves, but his new house is safe.

"We were in the risk zone, the flood zone. It was always difficult but we got used to living there because in dry times, when there would be no water, we could still get something out of our farms. The the 2007 flood appeared and we found ourselves victims. We carried our kids on our backs and sacrificed until we arrived here."

"Once [at the resettlement center], the government and organisations like Save the Children and the Red Cross gave help to people who had just arrived. They organised schools for the children, and gave the people food to eat. They distributed corn flour and school materials so some of the little children could still complete their studies."

"After the emergency the government encouraged people to live here permanently and only go to the low zone to farm. Some people couldn't do what the government asked and returned to the risk zones. Then the floods came again, but our colleagues have been rescued and brought here."

"So we are here permanently, it's just our farms that are down in the risk zones ... [In the resettlement camp] one can make a farm, but as you can see the soil is sandy, which doesn't provide for permanent production; just one year, two years, then that fertility disappears. For this reason many people return to the risk zone, always to farm."

"The preference of everyone here is to live here permanently and secure a better house as the government has requested [and is offering help to build]. Besides that, we have observed that there is a risk living in [the flood] zone. We plan on staying here, but making our farms there".

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