Mozambique seeks help in flood refugee crisis
Source: Reuters
By Charles Mangwiro CAIA, Mozambique, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Mozambique may need emergency help to airlift food and other supplies to thousands of flood refugees stranded in evacuation centres that are fast running out of supplies, officials said on Wednesday. Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) says the country faces a fresh humanitarian disaster as some 45,000 people crammed into temporary camps run short of food, fuel and basic shelter. "The people have been there for over a week without proper feeding ... they are isolated and we can't go there by road and we have to airlift some of them and drop food," INGC national director Paulo Zucula told Reuters. "We now have to change our focus from rescue operations to the accommodation centres. We will consider an emergency appeal if the flooding situation continues," he said. Mozambique's latest flooding has affected some 80,000 people, many of whom have been cut off from the rest of the country as rising waters from the Zambezi river cut off access roads and wash out bridges. Zucula, who on Tuesday visited the worst hit region of Mutarara in the northern province of Tete, where more than 17,000 people are living in make-shift shelters of twigs and wet grass, said food and sanitation were now top priorities. "The rains are making our operations very difficult, probably we will call for help in air assistance in air lifting operations ... we will ask for this help now," he said. WILD FRUIT The government says at least 29 people have died as torrential rains pounded the central provinces of Tete, Manica, Sofala and Zambezia over the last two months. The national broadcaster, TVM, reported on Wednesday that a further 10 people had drowned in the lower Zambezi in the past four days, although this could not be immediately confirmed. The U.N World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday began distributing food to evacuees, but the operation has been complicated by poor access roads. Some flood victims say they have been surviving for more than a week on wild fruit, some of which pose serious health hazards, and untreated water. "We have not eaten anything since we arrived here last week. Children will die and we cannot feed them with wild fruit because it's too dangerous," said Johane Balicholo, an official in charge of the Samarusha accommodation centre in Mutarara. "There are many old people sleeping in a roofless church and we can't do anything for them and they can't even walk. Some women left their children here as they fled in different directions and now they can't come back because all roads have been swamped." Reuters reporters accompanying officials on a fly-over of the region saw waterlogged farmland split into islands while grass-thatched houses and schools have been submerged along the lower Zambezi. In make-shift accommodation centres, anxious and hungry children stood in the rain crying for help. Mozambique saw its worst flood disaster in 2000/2001 when some 700 people died in southern and central regions hit by the biggest floods in some 50 years. The European Commission said on Wednesday it had allocated 2 million euros to help, with the main objective of resettling evacuees in safer areas with access to clean water and adequate health care.
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