Xai-Xai, Mozambique, Feb. 2, 2026 (Lusa) - Cattle now occupy the road outside the Mozambican city of Xai-Xai, searching for food on the little land not taken over by floods that have also disrupted lives, desperate to get home, even if only in small boats.

About five kilometres from the city, brothers Alexandre and Agostinho, emigrants in South Africa, have gathered their cattle, more than 70 cows and oxen, and are following the N1, in the middle of the road, once busy and now deserted, surrounded by water, with houses, warehouses and other buildings submerged around them.

It is 5 p.m., and the two brothers, with their crooks in hand and the help of some children, have been looking for food for their animals since leaving Chicumbane, on the outskirts of Xai-Xai, southern Mozambique, at 6 a.m.

"Grazing cattle by the roadside is not normal, but because of the floods we are here, taking advantage of the grass by the roadside so that the animals can survive," explains Alexandre Chambisso, 36, to Lusa. He sees these floods as comparable only to those of 2000, which also affected Gaza.

Today, with an estimated 40% of the province affected by the January floods, he fears that "great hunger" is coming, starting with the animals.

"Even with these floods, many animals have died, also from hunger. We don't know where we're going, because the animals have already eaten all the grass and the water is still high here, so we don't know what to do," he says.

At home, they did not escape the floods and lost everything from corn to ducks and chickens. The two emigrant brothers were on holiday for the December festivities, and when they were about to return to South Africa, the nightmare struck "suddenly", with heavy rains uninterrupted for several days, which quickly caused the water level to rise.

"And we're still here. There was no point in leaving for South Africa and leaving the cattle here to suffer," says Alexandre, a father of five.

While tending to the cattle, watching the sporadic passage of vehicles on Mozambique's main road connecting Maputo to the north, his brother, Agostinho Mazuze, 57, comments on what he has seen there in recent days: "Something happened that we have never seen before (...) there is a lot of flooding, we have lost a lot."

With eight children at home, the two brothers take the animals along the road, keeping an eye on the little grass that remains between the tarmac and the floodwater.

"Our feet hurt from walking," he acknowledged, lamenting, "There is nowhere to put the cattle."

In a scenario where, for miles, "only the road remains," he is concerned about the hunger that is to come, with lost crops and cattle without food.

"We are just walking behind the cows, eating the grass. But there is no grass, there is nothing," he says, discouraged.

In the distance, the bridge deck over the Limpopo River is now just above the water level, and the river has already taken over all the land around the capital of Gaza province.

This access still has a toll to pay, even though it leads nowhere shortly afterwards.

"Everyone pays," says the toll collector in the only booth in operation, which is practically deserted. A few hundred metres further on, the N1 road that crosses Xai-Xai is submerged by the floods and cuts off the land connection to the north, leaving thousands on each side waiting, searching and paying for any solution.

This is the case for Bibichela Mbandze, 31, and two other colleagues, who are studying to be health technicians at the Indian Polytechnic Institute. They finished their 10-month internship at the Inharrrime Health Centre in Inhambane, the northernmost province, and were stranded by the floods in Gaza, with hundreds of kilos of luggage, as they tried to return to Maputo.

"The internship is over. We are here because there is no way to travel, the road is bad, we had to take a boat," she tells Lusa, while calculating what she is spending and going through on this return trip.

"It's very expensive, we don't have any money. We are students, and our parents are making sacrifices to get us here or to take us home," she laments, explaining that each of them paid 1,000 meticais (€13.20) just to cross the Xai-Xai area by boat, making the trip even more expensive.

"It's very risky, there's a lot of water, and it's a long distance (...) Almost two hours by boat, and it's not a motorboat, it's manual," explains Bibichela, who now has her brother's help.

Tired, barefoot, with water reaching their knees, they recover from the boat trip and still have to find a lift to get to the point where they can catch transport, almost two kilometres away along a submerged road, with all their bundles.

Fernando Matlombe, a maritime transport entrepreneur on Bilene beach, a few kilometres to the south, is there. He took two motorboats to Xai-Xai to make the connections between the two banks created by the floods, which require maritime transhipment to the entrance of the bridge over the Limpopo River.

"Of course, we are helping because there is no other way," he says.

Each day, he says he can make 80 trips with each boat, which carries six people at a time on a few-minute journey, allowing hundreds to bypass the flood blockade in Xai-Xai.

After four days of operating there, he has now started concentrating his boats on cargo to take advantage of the "stronger" engines, leaving passengers to the less powerful ones.

"How many boats have been damaged here," he asks, pointing. With several boats broken down on the shore due to problems in recent days, he has acknowledged that he has to charge for the trips to cover the fuel and the risk of the boats sailing over roads swallowed up by the floods.

"Because it's not easy here (...) it's no joke," he says, dismissing complaints about prices.

"Before I arrived, it was 1,000. Then they asked to lower the price, and now it's 500 per person," he says, always keeping an eye on the comings and goings of boats, which arrive and depart loaded with passengers and all kinds of cargo, trying to keep connections flowing amid historic floods.

Zubaida Cristiana, 28, has just arrived by boat at the bridge in Xai-Xai, on a journey that already totals more than 250 kilometres by road and has just as many to Maputo. Add to that the boat: "It was very difficult (...) five hours from the other side to here."

With the cargo she is carrying, she paid 700 meticais [€9.20], and now she still has to find another means of transport by land: "It's very expensive."

Since 7 January, the floods in Mozambique have affected more than 720,000 people in Mozambique, mainly in the provinces of Gaza and Maputo, causing more than 20 deaths and widespread destruction, from agricultural fields to infrastructure and roads, as well as hundreds of thousands of flooded and destroyed homes.

PVJ/ADB // ADB.

Lusa