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An aircraft flies over central
Mozambique, which was submerged in water
following heavy torrential rains
in 2000. In 2013, flooding in the country has
left 68 people dead and 169,000
people displaced.
Photo by: Cary Humphries
/ U.S. Department of Defense
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Aid groups are meeting today in Maputo
to discuss their response in flood-hit Mozambique. A draft plan that will
include an analysis of the situation and resources needed is in its “final
stages.”
Flooding in parts of Mozambique has
now displaced 169,000 and left at least 68 people dead, some due to secondary
causes like electrocution, according to a Feb. 1 situation report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs’ Regional Office for Southern Africa. Several
of those who died were from the northern part of the country, which is under
threat from being isolated from the rest of Mozambique, with more rains
expected in the next few days.
Challenges could be exacerbated with
an overflow of the Zambezi river,
which, according to the National Water Directorate, was already above alert
levels last week.
The flooding in the north could have ”serious
humanitarian implications,” a report published yesterday by
OCHA-ROSA concluded. The government is “already stretched to capacity,” that
report noted.
Still, the Mozambique government has
not appealed for international assistance. (It has been reluctant to receive
international assistance, although in 2000, when severe floods left more than
700 people dead, it did make an appeal.)
“The situation is almost out of
control but we can still manage,” National Institute of Disaster Management
spokeswoman Rita Almeida told state-run TVM on Jan. 26. “We have internal
capacity and we are counting on our local partners.”
Hein Zeelie of OCHA-ROSA told Devex on
Friday: “At the moment, the idea is for partners to seek assistance from
in-country donors. That might change, things might happen at this current
meeting going on in Maputo, but at the moment, there has been no formal appeal
for [international] assistance from the government.”
The U.N. humanitarian country team in
Mozambique will be issuing a more detailed situation report “shortly” that will
detail needs and response gaps. It has also been floating a response and
recovery proposal that includes appeals for donors both in-country and through
OCHA’s Central Emergency Response Fund.
Meanwhile, flood waters are receding
in the southern part of the country, where the response by government and aid
groups is ongoing, but many rivers “continue to fluctuate above alert levels.”
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