It came as more than 5,200 of the former rebel group’s fighters were disarming just weeks before a visit by Pope Francis and a national election that will test the resolve of the two parties to sustain the peace.

Stephanie Murphy recently travelled with the Red Cross in Mozambique, where two cyclones left more than 1,000 dead and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

For the first time in recorded history, Mozambique has been hit by two cyclones in a single season.

Rescuers were moving in to help people trapped by rapidly rising floodwater in the northern Mozambique city of Pemba on Sunday, home to 200,000 people, a United Nations (U.N.) spokesman said, as Cyclone Kenneth dumped more rain on the region.

Heavy rains lashed northern Mozambique on Saturday in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth as aid groups warned of possible flooding and mudslides in the days ahead.

Health authorities are racing to vaccinate people against cholera, after more than 500 cases and one death.

The cholera cases have been discovered in the port city of Beira, whose half-million residents and especially those in crowded, poor neighbourhoods are at particular risk.

Hundreds of thousands of uprooted lives, many of them children, have been scattered by the storm that roared in on March 14.

Cholera cases in Mozambique among survivors of a devastating cyclone have shot up to 139, officials said,

About 1.85 million people have now been affected by Cyclone Idai and its aftermath in Mozambique alone, U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday, as aid workers raced to fathom the scale of the disaster and determine what help is most urgently needed.