Mozambique villagers return to ruined homes

Mozambique villagers return to ruined homes
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

More than a month after the flooding started in Mozambique, towns are slowly returning to life as the floodwaters recede, although some villages remain isolated and patiently await emergency aid. The town of Chokwe is one of those which is slowly re-emerging, but the sight brings little comfort to its returning residents. The devastation is visible everywhere, and for the villagers who rushed to return as soon as it was humanly possible the nightmare is far from over.

A third, perhaps half, of Chokwe residents have come back to this town some 200 kilometres north of Maputo, to find just the shells of their wooden huts remaining, with the thatched roofs washed away in the floodwaters. They still have to wade through muddy brown water sometimes knee-high to forage for any aid available, whether food, blankets or simple cooking materials. Only a fraction of the town's roads are passable, and then only by truck, tractor or four-wheel drive. Businesses and government offices have begun piling up rotting furniture and papers.

"Half of the old hospital is working, or is at least full," said Anja Kleinecke, of international medical aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF). "We have managed to shovel the mud out of some areas, thrown out the supplies and equipment which were irretrievable and refurnished the rooms with our own medical equipment." As with all flooded areas, the cruellest shortage is of water, drinking water. The supply has just been reestablished, but cases of diarrhoea, malaria and dehydration account for more than 60 per cent of the cases dealt with by MSF. In the three days to Wednesday they were presented with some 2,000 cases from the pre-flood population of 60,000.

Chokwe is one of the areas in the front line for aid, and received 1,500 blankets, 20 tents and 100 kitchen kits. But among the most sought after aid is cleaning materials including gloves, masks and shovels. Some have decided not to return yet, preferring to avail themselves of the medical and other aid at displacement camps, such as the nearby Chiaquelane where some 30,000 souls have set up temporary home.

Elsewhere in Mozambique, in the many areas which humanitarian aid is striving to reach, residents are still coming to terms with the amount of the damage to their town, house or farmland. Some villages remain cut off from the world by the remaining floodwater, with villagers taking to the higher ground around the banks of the swollen Limpopo and Save rivers in South and central Mozambique. The World Food Programme (WFP) continues its aid flights. "Each day we get a report of a new village for the first time which needs our help," a spokesman said.

On Tuesday, a helicopter scouting trip identified two villages around the Limpopo, Tanzania et Congresso, each with around a thousand inhabitants who had been cut off since mid-February and were just returning home to assess the damage. "The women spent hours sifting through piles of mouldy corn trying to pick out the grains which were still edible to make a meal, said the WFP's Lindsey Davies. "These people urgently need food and grain as the (April) sowing season approaches. It is vital that these arrive at the same time, otherwise they will eat the grain," she added. "They have got plenty of fish in the fields, at least they can eat those," she added.