Disease is threatening to aggravate the already dire conditions facing millions of survivors following the powerful tropical cyclone that ravaged southern Africa 10 days ago, officials warned on Sunday.

Cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique’s coast unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain that flooded swathes of the poor country before battering eastern Zimbabwe — killing 705 people across the two nations.

“It is inevitable that cases of cholera and malaria will arise. In many areas we are already fighting with malaria cases,” said Land Minister Celso Correia at a briefing in Beira, 1,000 kilometers northeast of the capital, Maputo.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, also at the briefing, warned that disease outbreaks in inaccessible areas could be “really problematic.”

The World Food Programme said Friday that the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Mozambique is on a par with the situation in Yemen and Syria.

Aid workers from across the world are continuing to arrive in the region to bring help to more than two million affected people across an area of roughly 3,000 square kilometers.

Survivors are struggling in desperate conditions with some still trapped on rooftops and those rescued in urgent need of food and medical supplies.

“The government is already setting up a cholera treatment center to mitigate cholera. We should not be frightened when cholera issues arise,” added Correia, describing efforts to control the emerging humanitarian crisis. “It is normal. It’s almost inevitable. Malaria, we know how it arises. We have lots of wetlands and we’re going to have malaria that is sure to come up (there).”

Wilfried Deloviare, a 19-year-old resident of Beira, which was caught in the eye of the storm, said he felt “sorry for our town, our city, because we suffered a lot to build it.”

“Houses are completely destroyed, and some people don’t have money to rebuild their businesses — and many businesses are going to fail,” he told AFP.

‘People don’t know what to do’

More than two million people have been affected in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, where the storm started as a tropical depression causing flooding, which killed 60 and displaced nearly a million people. Hundreds are still missing in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had recorded two cases of cholera so far but the UN was unable to confirm the reports.

Stampa described efforts to re-open the main access road to Beira as a “big victory.”

“We will be able to bring more help to families living in this affected area,” he said.

Those living in affected areas of Mozambique began to trickle back to church over the weekend.

The Ponta Gea Catholic Cathedral in Beira was miraculously undamaged by the storm while the church next door was leveled.

“The people don’t know what to do because they lost their houses, they have no food, they don’t know where to sleep — this brings sadness and anxiety,” said Father Pedro, who conducted a mass in darkness late on Saturday.

Much of the area hit by the cyclone remains disconnected from electricity supplies, complicating rescue efforts at nightfall.

As many as 109,000 people are living in shelters across central Mozambique, many of them located in and around Beira.

One survivor was six-year-old Elena Joaquin, who clutched a coconut as she sat surrounded by pots and pans at a shelter in Buzi, southwest of Beria, where she had sought refuge along with her parents.

But life had slowly begun to return to normal in central Beira, where traffic was flowing more than in recent days and businesses were resuming trade.

(Source: AFP)

A human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has condemned deportation of Cameroonians who had applied for asylum in Nigeria saying the action lacks legality. In a letter sent to the attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, Falana said his clients were also entitled to legal protection. The senior lawyer argued that in utter breach of their rights, they were deported and dumped in Cameroon by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).

Falana said: “Based on the instruction of our client, we challenged the expulsion from Nigeria at the Abuja judicial division of the Federal High Court. This case was defended by your chambers on behalf of the respondents including your office. “In the judgment delivered on March 1, 2019, the Federal High Court declared the deportation of our client as illegal and unconstitutional, and awarded reparation of various sums to them, ordering the federal government to bring them back to Nigeria and restore all their rights and privileges as bona-fide refugees and asylum seekers in Nigeria.”

The lawyer urged the attorney general to use his good office to compel the federal government to comply with the judgment of the Federal High Court. Legit.ng previously reported that the United Nations said no fewer than 32,000 Cameroonians fleeing insecurity and violence are currently taking refuge in Nigeria.

The UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Cameroon, Allegra Baiocchi, while presenting the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the country, described the situation in the country as “forgotten crisis”. Baiocchi and Cameroon’s civil protection director, Yap Mariatou, warned at the launch in Geneva that there was a drastic increase in humanitarian need across the country. The UN chief for Cameroon regretted that with attacks on the rise, around 4.3 million Cameroonians, mostly women and children, were in need of lifesaving assistance.

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Hundreds of trucks transporting food and humanitarian assistance to the Central African Republic are blocked at the border with Cameroon, as rebels have cut off the road to the capital, Bangui. The rebels acted to protest the president’s new cabinet, which they say is not being representative enough.

Among the 230 trucks and more than 500 drivers stranded in Garoua Boulay was Kum Aki, 54, who was transporting rice, maize and vegetable oil to the troubled CAR. He said most of the drivers had exhausted their $200 to $400 allowances they were given to cover the distance within a maximum of 10 days.

Expenses mount

“We are almost about 10 days here. … You have eaten, you have paid hotel bills and all this. So now we are short of money,” he said.

Alex Nseumen, president of the CAR transport trade union, said he crossed the border but was asked to return.

He said that when he crossed the border, he was told that CAR rebels had blocked the road at Nzokombo, 14 kilometers from the town of Garoua Boulay. He said he was expecting his boss to send additional funds so he could take care of himself and the assistant driver.

Garoua Boulay residents have complained of the mass movement of panic-stricken CAR residents across the border, expressing concern it may escalate.

In a crisis meeting Monday, Laurence Diyem Jam, the highest-ranking government official in Garoua Boulay, assured the population of their safety and said the military was controlling the border.

El Hadj Oumarou, Cameroon coordinator of the land freight transportation bureau, visited the drivers and thanked the government of Cameroon for assuring their safety.

He said he was very happy that the government had secured the trucks, goods and lives of the stranded drivers despite the tension their presence is causing in Garoua Boulay. He said they had not documented any incidents that would be a threat to anyone’s life.

Landlocked CAR depends on Cameroon’s Douala seaport for about 95 percent of its supplies.

Etienne Mbonjo, director of Catholic Church Health Services in CAR, said patients might begin to suffer soon, if drugs meant for Bangui remained in Cameroon for another week.

He said it took courage to meet the rebel groups, though negotiations failed to open the border. He said health and humanitarian needs were increasing daily and that the United Nations should take note.

CAR rebel groups accuse President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of failing to comply with a 2018 peace agreement that required a government with representatives from all armed groups. Only six of the 14 groups that signed the deal have members in the cabinet.

VOA

The number of people killed in a powerful storm and preceding floods in Mozambique could exceed 1,000, the president says, putting the potential death toll greatly more than current figures.

Only 84 deaths have been confirmed so far in Mozambique as a result of Cyclone Idai, which has also left a trail of death and destruction across Zimbabwe and Malawi, with vast areas of land flooded, roads destroyed and communication wiped out.

Speaking on Radio Mocambique, President Filipe Nyusi said he had flown over the affected region, where two rivers had overflowed. Villages had disappeared, he said, and bodies were floating in the water.

“Everything indicates that we can register more than one thousand deaths,” he said.

The cyclone has also killed 89 people in Zimbabwe, an official said on Monday, while the death toll in Malawi from heavy rains and flooding stood at 56 as of last week. No new numbers had been released following the cyclone’s arrival in the country.

Caroline Haga, a senior International Federation of the Red Cross official who is in Beira, said the situation could be far worse in the surrounding areas, which remained completely cut off by road and where houses were not as sturdy.

Nyusi flew over areas that were otherwise accessible, and some of which had been hit by flooding before Cyclone Idai.

Rescue effort

In Beira, Mozambique’s fourth-largest city and home to 500,000 people, a large dam had burst, further complicating rescue efforts.

Large swathes of land were completely submerged, and in some streets people waded through knee-high water around piles of mangled metal and other debris.

In the early hours of Monday morning, rescuers launched dinghies onto chest-high waters, navigating through reeds and trees – where some people perched on branches to escape the water – to rescue those trapped by the flooding.

Meanwhile, rescuers were struggling to reach people in Zimbabwe’s Chimanimani district, cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains and winds of up to 170 kilometers per hour that swept away roads, homes and bridges and knocked out power and communication lines.

Zimbabwean information ministry official Nick Mangwana told Reuters the number of confirmed deaths throughout the country was now 89. The body count is expected to rise.

Many people had been sleeping in the mountains since Friday, after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains.

The Harare government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm. Zimbabwe, a country of 15 million people, was already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops.

Southeastern Africa gateway

Beira, which sits at the mouth of the Pungwe River, is also home to Mozambique’s second-largest port, serving as gateway for imports to landlocked countries in southeast Africa.

The director of a company that jointly manages the port, Cornelder, based in the Netherlands, said the port had been closed since last Wednesday but would hopefully resume operations on Tuesday.

Two cranes would be working and the company had two large generators and enough fuel for now, though damage to access routes and roads further inland was more likely to cause a problem, said the director, who asked not to be named.

The fuel pipeline running from Beira to Zimbabwe was believed to be intact, the person said, though communication was still very patchy and therefore the situation at the port remained uncertain.

In February 2000, Cyclone Eline hit Mozambique when it was already devastated by its worst floods in three decades. It killed 350 people and made 650,000 homeless across southern Africa, also hitting Zimbabwe.

(Source: Reuters)

The Nigerian government has condemned the ejection of her citizens who are taking refuge in Cameroon by the country’s authorities.

A statement issued by the Federal National Commissioner for the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Sadiya Farouq, accused the Cameroonian government of flouting the United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 167 Protocol.

He said the Protocol forbids member nations from ejecting refugees under any circumstances.

According to the Commissioner, the ejected refugees are residents of Rann, Kala-Balge Local Government Area of Borno State, who fled their community to neighbouring Goura town in Cameroon due to incessant Boko Haram attacks in January.

The statement reads: “It is highly regrettable and sad to note that despite the passionate appeal made by the Nigerian Authorities to the Government of Cameroon not to chase out the victims of Boko Haram attacks from Rann Local Government of Borno State, this appeal has been ignored.

“Information reaching us is that the Cameroonian Government has thrown out the Displaced Persons from Rann who ran into Cameroun for safety in total disregard for the appeal and a clear breach of the United Nations Charter and Convention on the protection of Displaced Persons which both countries endorsed.

“The United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 167 Protocol states that , “no contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his or her life or freedom will be threatened on account of his or her race, religion or nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Mr Farouq, however, said Nigeria would not retaliate by ejecting Cameroonian refugees currently in Nigeria. He said; “You may recall that on January 14, 2019, persistent attacks in Rann compelled residents of the area to run into Cameroon territories for their safety, but from the onset, the Cameroon Government threatened to chase them out.

“The Nigerian Government had to remind its Cameroonian counterpart of its obligation to the displaced Nigerians, bearing in mind the UN Convention. Unfortunately, today Cameroon has made good its earlier threat by throwing the Nigerian Refugees back to the country in large number. In due course, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take appropriate steps on the matter.

“Meanwhile, it is worthy of mention to state that Nigeria is currently hosting many Cameroonian refugees located at Cross River, Benue, Akwa-Ibom, Taraba States and some of them in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja since October 2017 and we continue to provide them with relief, care and maintenance items. This is a clear demonstration of our commitment to international Conventions on humanitarian obligations and in the spirit of good neighbourliness.

“The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) in line with its mandate will continue to provide care and maintenance to persons of concern including nationals of other countries without any form of discrimination. However, we demand that Nigerian citizens in a foreign land must not be subjected to any shabby treatment under any circumstance.”

Source: Premium Times