KIERRAN MURRAY, Antananarivo | Wednesday 3.40pm
UNITED Nations officials have enough relief supplies to help the victims of flooding in Madagascar but are battling to get them to villages most in need, they said on Wednesday.
Although helicopters and small planes have been dropping supplies into towns around the country, moving them to scattered villages has been difficult because many roads are blocked by landslides or high water.
More than 20000 people saw their homes destroyed and 150 people were killed when Cyclones Eline and Gloria ripped through the giant Indian Ocean island, leaving it in a crisis that has been somewhat overshadowed by severe flooding in nearby Mozambique.
”It is now a question of distribution rather than the amount of aid that is coming,” said Edward Carwardine of the United Nations’ children’s agency Unicef.
He said the village of Menagisa, which lies just 20 kilometres from the coastal town of Mahanaro, has not yet received emergency food and medical supplies because one section of its road was waist-high in water. Its residents are reported to be surviving on berries.
French military officers in charge of helicopters deployed to help the relief effort said they thought the Madagascar flooding was not a real emergency.
But UN officials disagree, saying that, in addition to the thousands left homeless, many small farmers lost their crops to the floods. — Reuters