News stories by Louise Redvers, page 3

Think small to overcome big problems - that was the message to African governments being urged to do more to increase food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition on the continent.

The water seeped into Feliciana Teresa Matia’s home from beneath its mud floor and when her 20-year-old son Francisco got up to go to work, grabbing a metal pole for guidance in the dark, he was electrocuted.

Crouched on an upturned plastic box, Eva Angelino bounces 11-month old Odelina on her knee, trying to stop her crying. Mother and daughter are waiting in line outside a public health centre not far from the city centre of Angola’s capital Luanda.

More than 30,000 Angolans are stranded in transit camps after being abruptly deported from the Democratic Republic of Congo and there are growing fears of a cholera outbreak as the rainy season begins.



A chauffeur guides a shining 4x4 BMW out of a gated condominium, ferrying a smartly-dressed executive and her three uniformed children out into another morning in the Angolan capital, Luanda.

The fourth largest river in Africa, the mighty Zambezi, is a lifeblood to 32 million people, from land-locked Zambia to Mozambique in the Indian Ocean. But its blessing is also its curse.

The flood waters are starting to recede as the rainy season ends for another year, but while the emergency is over in southern Angola, the long term outlook is bleak.

Teresa Barros’ problems started last year with the death of her baby.