Cyclone Eloise Leaves Thousands Displaced in Central Mozambique

An Environmental Crisis in Mozambique

The wrath of Cyclone Eloise over the weekend in central Mozambique left 5,000 houses destroyed or damaged and almost 7,000 people displaced in an area already battered by two deadly cyclones in 2019.

Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario visited the Sofala province on Monday, calling on locals residing in areas at high risk of further flooding to evacuate to safety.

He addressed the locals in the area by way of an interpreter.

"It's necessary to create the conditions up here, conditions to have houses live well here, to have farms to produce here, to have drinking water and for the farms here."

Cyclone Eloise Did Damage Over the Weekend

Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the early hours of Saturday, bringing high-speed winds of up to 150 km/h followed by torrential rain over the port city of Beira, near the Buzi district.

A victim (and survivor) of the cyclone, stated what the ideal situation would look like for local farmers.

"Here in Guara Guara we have no place to farm or to cultivate, down there at the Buzi district we have places to cultivate and good soil to farm on. We ask to set up our farms down there and in the march rainy season, we can come back to Guara Guara to this centre. So please give us land here (in Guara Guara) to build our homes while we continue to farm down there in Buzi."

A Compounded Task for Aid Workers

National emergency response teams on Sunday confirmed six deaths and 12 serious injuries — numbers expected to rise with full damage assessment.

Jens Laerke, the spokesman of the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs, outlined the situation on the ground.

"As humanitarian partners were already responding to multiple needs in Mozambique including to the conflict in Cabo Delgado in the north and the recent impact of Tropical Storm Chalane, more resources are urgently needed to ensure that we can scale up quickly to respond to Tropical Cyclone Eloise."

UNICEF reports disproportionate effects in the city's poorer neighbourhoods and hundreds who have taken refuge in a school are still in need of urgent provisions.