Please help us... tell the world that we’re suffering
Fears for child victims of Cyclone Idai
FEARS were growing last night that hundreds of children may have been killed after Cyclone Idai hit southern Africa last week.
Crews in helicopters are still trying to save thousands of people clinging to trees and rooftops in Mozambique.
Some victims were decapitated after being hit by flying sheets of metal.
One rescuer said: “We found women and children holding on to trees. We are doing what we can but many villages have been washed away.” A dad-of- Youngsters in Beira Ravaged Beira city three, named Pedro, said: “Please help us. Tell the world we are suffering.”
Machiel Pouw, Save the Children’s response leader in Mozambique, said: “Thousands of children lived in areas completely engulfed by water.
“In many places, no roofs or treetops are visible above the floods. In other areas, people are clinging to rooftops.”
Rajino Paulino, who lives in Beira in the central region, said: “We don’t have
Tents are erected for the displaced People gather on a rooftop in Buzi help, it’s getting bad, we’re eating badly, sleeping badly, we don’t have homes.”
Officials fear that the death toll in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe could top 1,000, with 360 already confirmed dead.
More than 30 miles of land in Buzi, in Mozambique, has been submerged after a river burst its banks.
This morning the country started three days of mourning after 110mph winds struck last Thursday before moving to Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi called Cyclone Idai “a humanitarian disaster of great proportion”.
Clare Nullis, of the UN’s weather agency, said: “It is shaping up to be one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the southern hemisphere.”
Britain has pledged £18million in aid, as a charity worker warned of risks of water-borne diseases. Survivors led to safety