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Maputo, Mozambique
MCC in Mozambique


A deep trench cuts through the place where a house used to stand in a neighbourhood in Maputo, Mozambique, after a weekend of heavy rain. The neighbourhood is one among countless others affected by heavy rains and flooding in the nation’s capital.

One million Mozambicans are homeless due to a cyclone and heavy rains that have flooded the country. Hundreds remain stranded in trees and on rooftops, waiting to be rescued. Crops have been washed away. Malaria and cholera are on the rise. Swollen rivers that carried water from the highlands of South Africa and Zimbabwe into Mozambique, have since receded, revealing the remains of the dead. Roads and bridges have been cut off, hampering relief efforts.

Aid officials said hunger and thirst had driven some to eat the carcasses of drowned animals and to drink filthy floodwater, putting them at risk of cholera.

Cyclone Eline, which along with three weeks of torrential rains caused the flooding, was downgraded March 3 to a tropical storm.

Mennonite Central Committee has given $32,000 to aid flood victims in Mozambique and plans to do more. Preliminary ideas include providing more food, supplies such as clothing and tarps, and possibly seeds and tools so people can replant their fields when the water resides.

James, Michelle and daughter Maya

James Kornelsen and Michelle Janzen of Winnipeg are coordinating MCC’s flood relief program in Mozambique. They have been distributing relief with Christian Council of Mozambique staff.

An MCC assessment team is scheduled to arrive in Mozambique in March. The team will consist of Tim Lind, MCC worker in South Africa; Willie Reimer, director of MCC’s Food, Disaster and Material Resources department; and James Kornelsen. The team will be joined by Mark Beach of MCC’s communications department. The assessment team will recommend further MCC action for relief work in Mozambique.

Meanwhile, emergency relief is being sent by agencies and governments from around the world. The Spanish Red Cross has sent six water purifiers that together can clean 15,000 litres of water an hour. Antonov cargo planes from Germany and Belgium have unloaded relief supplies. An Italian cargo plane landed in the central city of Beira with 40 tonnes of relief supplies, and the first of three US planeloads of boats arrived.

Earlier Canada announced it will send $625,000 for emergency transportation such as helicopters in addition to $1 million for various agencies to provide food, medicine, shelter and transportation.

Mission Aviation Fellowship has begun aerial surveys of the flooded areas for relief agencies and government agencies to access damage and relief needs.

In the countryside, Kornelsen says, “What you see is miles and miles of water, areas completely flooded out, and chunks of pavement on the highway falling away.

“You sort of don’t know how to put something like that into words. Living here is like a test of one’s faith every day, a test of the people who are in dire straits right now.”

He says being involved in an international disaster was “initially very depressing. We had expected to leave town to start our vocational school Feb. 3. Then we realized we’d be stranded for some time. It be came very exciting being involved in something so big, being able to help.”

However, he adds his third stage of emotion has been a great worry over what will happen once the floodwaters – and international attention they have drawn – start to recede.

“There is no such thing as (disaster) compensation for people in Mozambique,” he says, and the need to plant a crop in areas that can be cultivated must, for now, take second place to relief efforts.

 – MCC, Winnipeg Free Press, Evangelical Press News Service

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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