Spring AID for Mozambique

On March 14th this year, the Mozambique port of Beira woke up to the shocking occurrence of the tropical cyclone Idai. On April 25th, another tropical cyclone Kenneth hit the coast once again. The disasters have destroyed homes, cut off power and left the formally established communities in ruins. This is reported to be the worst flood disaster to hit the area in the last 20 years.

As of May 5th, National Institute for the management of disasters (INGC in Portuguese) recorded about 247,0000 people in displacement camps (217,000 in Cabo Delgado province and 30,000 in Nampula province) of which approximately 123,500 are children. Field teams are still assessing the situation to understand the full magnitude of the crisis.

The cyclones affected other countries such as Malawi and Zimbabwe causing destruction of property worth millions of dollars and massive displacement of people from the places they’ve called home for a long time.

More than 38,000 houses have been recorded as destroyed and 23,000 partially destroyed. Over 477 classrooms and 19 health facilities were damaged or destroyed preventing the survivors from accessing education and primary health services.

The cyclone displaced over 1.85 million people in the 3 countries with more than 600 deaths, more than 1600 injuries reported and hundreds upon hundreds still missing. To date, families are still torn apart with children still searching for their parents and vice versa.

In lieu with this, thousands of malaria and cholera cases are reported every day in the camps. The first cholera cases after cyclone Kenneth were recorded on the 2nd of May, a few days later, the Ministry of Health had reported a little over 60 cases in the affected areas. The number of malaria cases is increasing, becoming a major concern due to the limited medical assistance available.