Survivors face starvation, disease Southern Africa
With the flooding easing in parts of cyclone-stricken Mozambique, fears are rising that the waters could yield many more bodies, as the confirmed number of people killed in Mozambique and neighbouring Zimbabwe and Malawi climbs past 600.
Eight days after Cyclone Idai struck southeast Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, causing some of the worst flooding in decades, the homeless, hungry and injured are slowly making their way from devastated inland areas to the port city of Beira, which was heavily damaged but has emerged as the nerve centre for rescue efforts.
‘‘Some were wounded. Some were bleeding,’’ said Julia Castigo, a Beira resident who watched them arrive. ‘‘Some had feet white like flour for being in the water for so long.’’
Aid workers are seeing many children who have been separated from their parents in the chaos or orphaned.
Elhadj As Sy, secretarygeneral of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the relief efforts so far were ‘‘nowhere near the scale and magnitude of the problem’’, and the humanitarian needs were likely to grow in coming weeks and months.
Helicopters set off into the rain for another day of efforts to find people clinging to rooftops and trees.
United Nations SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres appealed for more support for victims of Idai, saying the UN and its humanitarian partners were scaling up the response but ‘‘far greater international support is needed’’.
‘‘With crops destroyed in the breadbasket of Mozambique, more people are at risk of food insecurity in all three countries,’’ he said.
With water and sanitation systems largely destroyed, waterborne diseases are also a growing concern.
‘‘The situation is simply horrendous. There is no other way to describe it,’’ As Sy said after touring camps for the growing number of displaced people. ‘‘We are sitting on a water and sanitation ticking bomb.’’
The death toll in Mozambique rose to 293, and an unknown number of people are missing. Deaths could soar beyond the 1000 predicted by the country’s president earlier this week, As Sy said. The number of dead was put at 259 in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi.
In Zimbabwe, where roads have begun to reopen and some basic communications have been set up, a fuller picture of the extent of the damage is beginning to emerge. The victims included school headmasters missing with dozens of their students; illegal gold and diamond miners swept away by raging rivers; and police officers washed away with their prisoners.
In the city of Mutare, Maina Chisiriirwa said she had buried her son-in-law, who had gone to the diamond fields to mine illegally. ‘‘There are no jobs, and all he wanted was to feed his family.’’
‘‘The situation is simply horrendous. There is no other way to describe it.’’ Elhadj As Sy, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies