Malawi’s President, Peter Mutharika, who is visiting the area (Mangochi and Balaka South districts) on Friday, has declared 15 southern districts – almost half the country – a disaster zone and appealed for foreign aid. The Malawian military has now been deployed to lead the evacuation of vulnerable communities, but continued bad weather is hampering their efforts. IRIN has learned that some boats allocated to assist in the rescue of stranded survivors lacked fuel, delaying initial operations.DanChurchAid (DCA) is one of the few humanitarian organisations assisting the relief effort, allocating new funds to cover evacuation, medicine and other needs. IRIN spoke to Francis Botha, DCA’s regional communications officer, who has spent the past two days in the affected area. These are his impressions.
“The flooding covers an extensive area and reaching some places is very difficult because roads have been affected. More people are still being evacuated to safer places by the Malawi Defense Force using boats and helicopters, despite facing challenges due to bad weather especially in Nsanje and Chikwawa [districts particularly hard hit by the flooding]. But some people are refusing to be evacuated from their land to higher ground. Some children and their mothers have been sleeping in trees or on rooftops for a number of days waiting for rescuers or for the water to subside,” he said.
“I met one 9-year-old girl called Eve who spent four days in a tree with her grandmother before being rescued by the military. She is now safe and seems physically ok, but she is so traumatised she isn’t speaking. Another woman, called Marita, told me she climbed onto the roof of a nightclub with her baby clinging to her chest and waited for help.”
“Relief assistance is very inadequate. Mwananjovu is an evacuation camp where all those from flooded areas in Chikwawa are temporarily sheltered. It is a block comprising only two rooms and two pit latrines. It is so congested right now with 504 people evacuated by the army and police from across the Shire River. Only a few people received blankets from the police. In another camp, more than 300 people received a basin full of beans and a bucket of maize flour between them. In Nsanje the situation is complicated by the arrival of refugees from Mozambique fleeing floods on their side of the border.”
” The police Commissioner for the the Southern Region, Agnes Gondwe, said evacuating victims isn’t enough. We need to protect victims, especially women and children. So now the Malawian Police are establishing Child Protection and Victim Support services within the camps. Health Services are beginning to be coordinated especially by Medicines San Frontiers and the Ministry of Health. Unicef has provided tents. But people are not happy about the conditions. The chairman of one camp told me he was disgusted to see so many people in one small tent, eating poorly and rarely. Fears of waterborne diseases such as cholera are the main concern in the camps because of the congestion. ”
