Mozambique floods turning 2,000 a day into refugees
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mozambique floods turning 2,000 a day into refugees*
POSTED: 1517 GMT (2317 HKT), February 26, 2007
Story Highlights
• Food supplies stretched as refugees stream into camps
• Fears of disease rise as sanitary conditions in camps deteriorate
• Infrastructure damaged by years of civil war
• Situation could worsen as March is one of nation's wettest months
CAIA, Mozambique (Reuters) -- Thousands of flood victims are pouring
into crowded refugee camps in central Mozambique, straining relief
efforts and prompting fears of a food crisis, authorities said on Monday.
Weeks of heavy rains have triggered flash floods along the mighty
Zambezi river and its tributaries, washing away homes, bridges,
livestock and crops in four central provinces in the low-lying southern
African nation.
About 170,000 people have been displaced and at least 45 have died as a
result of the flooding, the worst to hit the former Portuguese colony
since the 2000-2001 floods that killed 700 people and drove another half
a million from their homes.
Aid workers were battling on Monday to supply food and fresh water to a
ballooning refugee population, with an estimated 2,000 people each day
streaming into temporary accommodation centers set up by the Red Cross
and other agencies. (Watch how UNICEF is trying to help kids in
Mozambique Video)
"We still have some food, but it's not enough," said Joao Ribeiro,
deputy director of Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster
Management (INGC).
Ribeiro said sanitary conditions in the shelters were worsening because
of a lack of toilets and poor hygiene, raising fears of outbreaks of
cholera and dysentery among the estimated 50,000 people living in the
makeshift camps.
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, however, said the relief effort
was proceeding smoothly and there was no need for the government to
issue a broad appeal for help.
"It's not a declaration on the international front that can help to
change the situation. I think we are going in the right direction,"
Guebuza told reporters in Caia, a central Mozambican town that has
become a command center for the relief effort.
Earlier on Monday the Mozambican leader flew over parts of the Zambezi
valley that were hard hit by the flooding.
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is distributing food to refugees in
the affected provinces. Neighboring South Africa and the European Union
also have pledged more help for the relief effort.
South Africa will send two helicopters and a mobile water purification
plant to its northeastern neighbor this week and could add a field
hospital and water and wind-resistant tents to its contribution, the
SAPA news agency reported on Monday.
But aid workers say the effort to feed and shelter refugees has been
complicated by poor roads in Mozambique, which is still rebuilding after
a 16-year civil war that ended in 1991.
The struggle to get food and water to flood victims could become more
difficult in the coming weeks as more rain falls on the country. March
traditionally is one of the wettest periods in Mozambique's rainy season.
"A lot of areas are still very difficult to get through and there are
new pockets of disaster areas forming," said Peter Rodrigues, emergency
relief coordinator for the WFP in Caia.
"The challenge is that these people are spread out, making it difficult
to reach them."
In southern Mozambique, which is home to the bulk of the country's
economically important tourist resorts, authorities were assessing the
damage from Cyclone Favio, which came ashore on Thursday with winds of
up to 169 mph.
The cyclone slammed into the coast, knocking down buildings, uprooting
trees and killing five people near Vilanculos. Mozambique's military on
Monday was attempting to restore water and electricity in the resort city.