Children face threat of rising floodwaters in Mozambique
Several rivers in Mozambique have reached dangerously high levels, forcing thousands of children from their homes in order to seek safety on higher ground.
Tuesday 8 January 2008
As the waters rise and the threat of flooding intensifies it is predicted that up to 250,000 people, around half of them children, could be affected.
Save the Children has already built up stocks of plastic sheeting to build shelters, chlorine tablets to purify water and rehydration tablets to treat diarrhoea before the floods hit. These will be distributed to thousands of families made homeless by the rising floodwaters. Save the Children will also set up emergency schools for children living in camps or resettlement areas.
The current floods come on top of flooding in March last year from which people have still not recovered. A report released by Save the Children in December found that ten months later families were still without food and many were unable to find a way of making a living.
The government of Mozambique has already declared a Red Alert for several major river basins in the country - the Zambezi, Buzi, Pungue and Save rivers - and estimates that 55,000 people have already been affected, with up to 15,000 displaced and numbers rising.
As well as being forced to leave their homes and being separated from their families, the biggest risk for children affected by flooding is life-threatening water-borne diseases, such as diarrhoea.
Chris McIvor, Save the Children's director in Mozambique, said: "The warning bells have been ringing for two-weeks. The flooding could get a lot worse very quickly. Save the Children has a great deal of experience in dealing with floods in Mozambique and we know that what children will need most urgently is shelter, clean water to drink and enough food to eat. Save the Children will also be working to ensure that children who have been forced to leave their homes are kept safe."
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For more information on the worsening flood situation or for eye-witness interviews, please contact the Save the Children Media Unit on 020 7012 6841 or media@savethechildren.org.uk.
