The people of Mozambique must “implement life-saving strategies” during natural disasters such as the heavy rains that hit the country last week, Mozambique’s land and environment minister said Thursday.
At an international conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, Ivete Maibaze recalled that Mozambique “is being hit by heavy rains that have caused enormous damage.”
Between October and April, Mozambique suffers cyclical floods, a phenomenon justified by its geographic location, prone to the passage of storms and, at the same time, downstream of most river basins in southern Africa.
During the current rainy season, floods have affected more than 88,000 people, killed 91 people, destroyed more than 1,000 houses, damaged more than 3,000 and destroyed 186 classrooms, lamented Ivete Maibaze.
Maputo province was hit last week by heavy rain and bad weather that affected at least 39,000 people and caused nine deaths, in addition to locking down the municipality of Boane, just over 30 kilometers from the center of the Mozambican capital.
During this time of the year, floods often occur in the country, which are in the middle of the rainy season, but even in this case, the rainfall exceeded all expectations.
Yvette Maybaze has defended that, with the increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, the people of Mozambique should “implement life-saving strategies” during natural disasters.
Last Thursday, an engineer and disaster risk management specialist told Lusa that “negligence” and “lack of territorial order” exacerbated the effects of flooding in the Maputo region, but the high “scale” exacerbated the effect of the disaster.
“We did not prepare society and our institutions for this kind of extreme situation in the southern region of Mozambique,” said Luis Arthur.
At a conference this Thursday on the relationship between climate change and migration organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Ivete Maibaze confirmed that the devastation caused by extreme weather events has caused internal displacement of people.
According to the minister, “uncertainty and disruption of livelihoods” is one of the main drivers of forced migration of “the most vulnerable rural communities” most affected by climate change.
However, “migration is not properly accompanied by access to employment, decent housing, and health and sanitation services” in cities, Maibaze notes.
Angela Martins, director of the Department of Culture of the African Union (AU), Mozambique, said that “extreme weather is having an increasing impact on people’s lives”, namely due to droughts and crop failures.
“If nothing is done in Africa, it will sabotage the AU’s sustainable development agenda,” the official warned.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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