After Cyclone Idai: Emergency Aid in Mozambique

With wind speeds of 160 kilometers per hour in some places, cyclone “Idai” reached the coast of Mozambique last weekend. Outliers had already hit the southeastern African country all week. Yet no one had expected the tropical storm that would subsequently hit Mozambique so devastatingly.

An exact number of fatalities is not yet known. Every day, the number of reported deaths increases. What is certain, however, is that hundreds of thousands of people were injured in the natural disaster, some of them gravely, and lost their possessions and often even their entire homes. Quick intervention is needed to help the people in what was already an economically weak country. Cap Anamur assembled an emergency team within a few hours, which will arrive in Mozambique later this week.

The coastal city of Beira, with a population of around 500,000, has been without electricity, communications network and land connection to the outside world since Thursday night. Here, our emergency aid team aims to provide medical assistance. In Maputo, the capital of the country, our team will land and meet the experienced logistician Michael Schlüssel. Schlüssel has been on several missions for Cap Anamur himself and declared Mozambique his new adopted country a few years ago. Together with him, the team travels to the cut-off region, gets an overview of the situation and sets up an initial medical camp. As soon as we can survey the extent of the disaster, we will take further steps.