Mozambique Flooding Disaster: Salim Appeals To African Leaders To Help Mozambique

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PANA) - In announcing a 500,000-US-dollar contribution by the Organization of African Unity, OAU, to help Mozambique cope with its flooding crisis, Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim Tuesday February 29, 2000, said he had made "direct appeal" to African leaders to provide "whatever support they can give" to Mozambique.

The money was in addition to a "token" assistance the secretary general had made to the same cause 18 February as he made his initial appeal to the international community to assist Mozambique cope with the worst floods in its history.

Salim told a press conference that although the amount of money the OAU was providing Mozambique was "relatively small to the magnitude of the crisis," it "is a clear and firm expression of our sense of concern and solidarity with the people of Mozambique" in the context of the limited resources of the organization. He lamented that the prevailing crisis in Mozambique was so "overwhelming," that it has reached "very tragic and unbearable proportions."

Among the worst of affected victims of the combination of destructive cyclone, heavy rainstorms, over-flowing rivers and floods, have been children, women and the elderly.

U.S. pledge $7million
Flood-ravaged Mozambique got a U.S. pledge (on Tuesday February 29, 2000) of $7 million worth of food and $3 million in other aid to help thousands of people stranded as the country braced itself for more storms.Aid has been trickling into Mozambique, where television pictures have shown rescue workers in overladen helicopters struggling to lift people to safety as waters continue to rise after three weeks of flooding.

Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon said more storms were coming and that more than 100,000 people needed to be rescued. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development told Reuters that Washington was also on the point of approving more cash to help a search and rescue operation and provide shelter and water purification chemicals. "The 15,000 metric tons of corn, 1,500 metric tons of peas, beans and lentils and 600 metric tons of vegetable oil will get there over the next few weeks,'' she added. The new U.S. pledges came on top of $1.6 million and two planeloads of supplies due to arrive in the region on Wednesday, also supplied by the United States.

"We are prepared to send an additional $3 million for non-food aid, such as payment for helicopters to aid in search and rescue, shelter and water purification chemicals,'' the spokeswoman said, adding that final approval was expected. The United States sent two planeloads of supplies to Mozambique and South Africa after floods swept the region, killing at least 350 people and wrecking crops vital for the winter in Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Aid workers say privately that many hundreds more people must have died.

Bacon said the U.S. cargo planes would arrive on Wednesday with tents, blankets, food and sheets of plastic for shelter. "We estimate that the flooding in Mozambique has affected more than 500,000 people and that 105,000 are still in need of immediate rescue,'' Bacon said. "We have a human assistance survey team in Mozambique and South Africa. It has been there since February 21, moving back and forth between Mozambique and South Africa,'' he added.

Fourteen members of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department were also due to leave for Maputo on Wednesday, one of two teams dispatched by the U.S. government to aid in the search and rescue effort. The USAID spokeswoman said the United States would continue to assess any more requests for help as they came in. "Sadly, the conditions keep worsening and they are expected to worsen still because there are other storms coming along, according to forecasters,'' Bacon said.

In Mozambique, a country which had just started to see some shoots of recovery after a protracted civil war ended in 1992, more than 800,000 people have been made homeless.
The United States has also set up a free telephone number for information on how to donate money, 1-800-USAID-RELIEF or 1-800-872-4373 (Reuters)

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