Most Mozambicans living in flood-prone areas have heeded calls to evacuate in the face of rising waters this year, but they’ll be back once the rivers subside.
Françoise Le Goff, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Southern Africa, told the Mail & Guardian recently that even though the water levels were higher than the deadly floods in 2000 and 2001, only eight people had lost their lives.
The previous floods killed about 700 people and caused damage to bridges, roads and farmland estimated at $500-million. Images of Mozambicans clinging to trees — with a child even being born in the treetops — galvanised the international community into a massive flood-relief effort. American troops stopped off at Hoedspruit air base on their way back from a tour of duty in Iraq to boost the rescue effort.
This year, however, earlyÂwarning systems saved lives.
One of the reasons that Mozambique is almost always hard hit by floods is that rain in Zambia and Zimbabwe swells the Zambezi River — Africa’s fourth-longest — to well above flood levels.
According to the Mozambique Red Cross, by mid-January a marine detachment led by Lieutenant Eurico Iyale had rescued 1 117 people who were living in villages along the Busi River near Beira and moved them to resettlement centres in Guara Guara and Bandua. They are not out of danger, however, as officials say they are worried about outbreaks of malaria and diarrhoea in these resettlement areas.
People living on river banks are, unsurprisingly, unwilling to leave their homes. The river is their life, guaranteeing food and crops.
“Sometimes we have to go back as many as five times to persuade people to leave,” the Red Cross quoted volunteer MacDonald Tonderai Gassane saying. “They can be very reluctant to leave their plots and the place where their ancestors are buried.
“We find them sitting on their roofs, or sometimes up to their chests in water, not quite sure what to do. What we are doing is to direct those affected to permanent new residential areas.”
“This is the third time I’ve been evacuated since 2000,” said Felismina Sábado, a mother of four from a resettlement centre in Mutarara District, Tete Province. She lost her husband in the 2001 floods. “In the past the government did little or nothing at all to help us start a new life here. They just left us here like animals to fend for ourselves, so I returned home to grow vegetables and raise poultry.
“Now I see a ray of hope. I was given a plot to grow vegetables, maize and rear some animals. I’ll just go down near the river in times where there are no huge rainfalls.”
Bonifácio António, a senior officer with the Mozambican National Disaster Management Institute, said the government wants to ensure that people don’t return to where they used to live, “which are flooded again and again, each rainy season”.
Since December at least 90 000 people living along rivers that regularly burst their banks have been evacuated to resettlement centres on higher ground. Some people have been evacuated more than once already this season, but return home to fish, harvest crops or tend to their livestock.
Tom Miller, chief executive of international children’s organisation Plan, said the problem of recurrent flooding and living or farming near rivers is a “chicken-and-egg proposition” and that the Mozambican government should provide attractive alternatives.
“This [the flooding] has been happening every year for a good number of years. This is where people live because this is where the best land is. You’ve got to give them alternatives … this is their livelihoods,” he said.
Miller believed the Mozambican government’s response was timely and proactive and saved lives, but that this might change should the weather take a turn for the worse.
He said his organisation is facing a massive task in the country. It is one of the world’s poorest and 90 000 of its people have been forced from their homes by the floods, while 89 000ha of agricultural land have been submerged.
He said that in Inhambane Province, where Plan runs aid and development programmes, an estimated 80% of people live in absolute poverty. “And if that’s not bad enough, there’s a pretty high incidence of HIV/Aids.”
Meanwhile, Mozambique might not be out of the woods yet. In addition to the early onset of rains, earlier this week tropical cyclone Gula was heading towards Mauritius, east of Madagascar, according to the Tropical Storm Risk website. It was predicted to strengthen and pass close to the east of Mauritius later in the week, possibly bringing more rain to Mozambique.