Next week Pope Francis is due to visit northern Mozambique, an area devastated by cyclones and riven by an Islamist insurgency. The photographer Marco Longari filed these images from the region
Continue reading...Category Archives: Mozambique
Andrew Mitchell and Justine Greening back calls for foreign loan transparency
Former international development secretaries among 50 British MPs urging introduction of tighter regulations on disclosure
Three former international development secretaries are among 50 British MPs urging the British chancellor to take “strong action” to increase transparency on loans to governments, in advance of next month’s G20 meeting.
Citing the alleged involvement of UK-based companies in secret loans to Mozambique, Andrew Mitchell, Justine Greening and Hilary Benn joined parliamentarians from every party in calling for regulations to ensure loans to governments are publicly disclosed.
Continue reading...‘Simple mistakes have big impact’: the man with a tablet for making aid better
Struck by failings in the implementation of health projects, a Mozambican entrepreneur has turned to tech for a solution
The limited success of foreign-backed projects to fight diseases in Africa is down to basic misunderstanding about how to communicate even the simplest messages, a Mozambican education entrepreneur has said.
Dayn Amade, founder of Maputo-based technology company Kamaleon, is calling for the World Health Organization and aid groups to reassess how people on the African continent are educated about disease prevention.
Continue reading...The 20 photographs of the week
Conflict in Syria, shocking pink fashion at Cannes, and a seal pup making a splash – the last seven days, as captured by the world’s best photojournalists
Continue reading...Mozambique: people trapped in rising floods as Cyclone Kenneth batters country – video report
Five people are dead and aid workers have reported scenes of destruction in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth, the second tropical cyclone to lay waste to swathes of Mozambique in five weeks. Rescuers have moved in to help people trapped by rapidly rising flood water in the northern city of Pemba, a United Nations spokesman said, as the storm dumps more rain on the region
Continue reading...Five dead and homes flattened after cyclone hits Mozambique
People trapped by rising flood water as Cyclone Kenneth dumps more rain on the region
Five people have died and aid workers have reported scenes of destruction in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth, the second tropical cyclone to lay waste to swathes of Mozambique in five weeks.
Rescuers have moved in to help people trapped by rapidly rising flood water in the northern city of Pemba, home to 200,000 people, a United Nations spokesman said, as Kenneth dumped more rain on the region.
Continue reading...Cyclone Kenneth: UN says Mozambique may need another huge aid effort
Still reeling from Cyclone Idai, country hit by its strongest ever recorded storm
The destruction caused by Cyclone Kenneth, the strongest storm on record to hit Mozambique, may require another massive aid effort in a country still reeling from the year’s first tropical cyclone, the UN has said.
With high winds and torrential rain, Kenneth made landfall in the country’s north on Thursday night, five weeks after Cyclone Idai devastated its centre.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai: ‘My family needs to eat, I don’t know how we will survive’
In Mozambique, where many people rely on crops to live, Idai’s impact on two key agricultural areas has been devastating
Marie Jose stares out at her field of broken maize stalks, the cobs yellow and mouldy from days of excessive water followed by weeks of extreme sun. She should have harvested them last month, but Cyclone Idai struck her village in Buzi district, in central Mozambique, and destroyed them all.
She is still dealing with the trauma of losing her grandparents and niece to the tropical storm. “They couldn’t hold on in the trees where we were sitting and the wind pushed them into the water,” she says. Their bodies are still missing.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai caused $2bn of damage and affected millions, says World Bank
Global lender says the cyclone affected about 3 million people, damaging infrastructure and livelihoods
A strong cyclone that cut a deadly swath through Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe last month is expected to cost the three countries more than $2bn, the World Bank has said.
Early estimates pointed to Cyclone Idai costing $2bn “for the infrastructure and livelihood impacts,” the World Bank said in a statement after a meeting in Washington on Thursday.
Continue reading...‘You often get sick’: the deadly toll of illegal gold mining in South Africa | Christopher Clark
Driven by need, tens of thousands of women are risking death, disease and sexual violence to scrape a living in the country’s informal mining sector
On the outskirts of Durban Deep, an abandoned mining town with a labyrinth of underground tunnels long since abandoned by the big gold companies, Elizabeth goes rhythmically about her work.
Grinding piles of rough stones into white, gold-flecked silt on a large concrete slab, the 40-year-old is one of the ghostly dust-covered zama zamas – artisanal miners, mostly illegal – who have turned to scavenging in disused gold and diamond mines across South Africa.
Continue reading...Why were the people worst affected by Cyclone Idai so badly prepared? | Antonio Matimbe
While the world’s poorest bear the brunt of ever more powerful storms, international leaders do little to address the devastating impact of climate change
I am a Mozambican aid agency communicator. Cyclone Idai is just the latest humanitarian crisis I have been involved in.
Mozambique has a history of being affected by huge storms. The upsetting thing to me is that while international leaders and experts talk about climate change and the impact this is having on the world, the very poorest are bearing the brunt of ever more powerful storms.
Continue reading...Survival in Mozambique after cyclone Idai – in pictures
Millions of survivors face dire conditions after the tropical cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique’s coast, unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain that flooded swathes of the country. More than two million people have been affected in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where the storm killed 60 and displaced nearly a million people. Hundreds are still missing in Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Continue reading...Mayor in Mozambique says negligence led to cyclone deaths
People in rural areas were not told about red alert days before Idai struck, says city official
The Mozambican government failed to warn people in the areas worst hit by Cyclone Idai despite a “red alert” being issued two days before it struck, the mayor of the city of Beira has said.
The southern African country was completely unprepared for the disaster and “profound negligence” led to many deaths, said the mayor, Daviz Simango, who is also the leader of an opposition party.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai crisis deepens as first cases of cholera confirmed in Mozambique
Five people test positive for waterborne disease in flooded port city of Beira amid warnings outbreak will spread
The first cases of cholera have been reported in the cyclone-ravaged Mozambican city of Beira, complicating an already massive and complex emergency in the southern African country.
The announcement of five cases of the waterborne disease follows days of mounting fears that cholera and other diseases could break out in the squalid conditions in which tens of thousands have been living since Cyclone Idai struck on 14 March, killing at least 700 people across the region.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai death toll passes 750 with more than 110,000 now in camps
Devastated areas of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi brace for the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and malaria
Cyclone Idai’s death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm, as workers try to restore electricity and water and prevent an outbreak of cholera.
In Mozambique the number of dead has risen to 446, with 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi.
Continue reading...No food, no shelter, no livelihood: families in Mozambique hit by Cyclone Idai
Officials ‘overwhelmed’ by the scale of the disaster, leading to a delay in humanitarian and rescue missions
Beneath the crumbling arcade of the municipal council building in Beira, in Mozambique, a group of families has set up a dismal camp. They sleep on dirty concrete pavement and cook with branches from the trees brought down by Cyclone Idai which swept through southern Africa last week.
Winds of more than 100mph triggered devastating floods and more than 400 people were killed, according to government sources. Land and environment minister Celso Correia said that the situation in the country was now critical.
Continue reading...‘The water took everything’: Buzi evacuees tell of Cyclone Idai ordeal
People rescued by boat are arriving at Beira in hope of first aid, shelter and reunion with their families
Standing in the fishing port in Beira, Mozambique, Jose Mala scans the faces of those evacuated by boat from Buzi – one of the towns hardest hit by Cyclone Idai – searching for anyone he knows.
He had hopeful news the day before, says Mala, 27. He met a neighbour at the port who told him his sister and two nephews had survived the cyclone that destroyed large parts of their hometown.
Continue reading...‘We don’t have anything’: the fight for survival after Cyclone Idai
In cities and villages across Mozambique the huge need for aid and assistance is not being met by a chaotic rescue effort
The main road connecting the cyclone-devastated Mozambican city of Beira to neighbouring Zimbabwe comes to an abrupt end. A section almost 100 metres wide is almost entirely underwater, an angry muddy gash where the tarmac was ripped away by the floods and raging currents.
A week after the onset of Cyclone Idai, as the waters have receded in some places, some of those trapped in villages in the midst of the flood waters have at last managed to get out with huge effort.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai brings devastation to Mozambique – visual guide
Rescuers race to reach tens of thousands of people trapped by vast areas of flooding
Idai first hit Mozambique on 4 March as a tropical depression with torrential rain that also affected southern Malawi. It then changed course, moving back over the sea where the storm strengthened to a cyclone with the equivalent force of a category 3 hurricane.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai witness describes seeing hundreds of bodies by roadside
Fears situation far worse than official death toll, as communities ‘totally obliterated’
Entire villages have been destroyed in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and most of their inhabitants swept away, as rescuers race to save tens of thousands of people trapped by flood waters from Cyclone Idai.
Testimony collected from areas entirely cut off by flooding shows a situation far worse than indicated by official figures, with estimates from some witnesses suggesting that the death toll will reach the thousands.
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