MAGOANINE

The community of Maputo is still at the front line in seeking to help the people hit by the rains and the floods. Not without difficulty has the community been able to distribute 6 tons of food aid to 220 families in the refugee camp of Magoanine in the Northern outskirts of Maputo, a very crowed camp in to which most of the families from the hardest-hit areas (Bairro Ferroviario e Polana Cani�o) have moved. Virtually nobody has been able to reach this camp to carry out the distribution of food aid, because of the difficulties in travelling the sandy road (3 Km long) that connects the camp to the main road, and also because of the difficulties of organising a distribution system. People told us that it was very rare that a food package (about 25 kg per family) would directly reach those who needed it.

We have carried out the distribution in the most extreme part of the camp. The people living in this part of the camp are people who still haven't received the piece of land which the State gives for the reconstruction of one's house. Here, up to 10 families are living in the same tent or hut.

The Community also distributes about 60 hot meals to those elderly who are living on the streets in the suburb of Baixa in Maputo. Because of the floods, the price of foodstuffs has shot up and those who were already poor now aren't able to buy anything.

The refugee camp of Magoanine during the distribution of food

The refugee camp of Magoanine

  MANHI�A

The help of Fr. Joaquim, the parish priest of Manhi�a and Calanga, continues: thanks to the motorboats supplied by the Portuguese President, it is now possible to reach the isolated area of Calanga more frequently. There are 10,000 people living here and previously only one boat per day with 500 kg of food could reach the area. We have given Fr. Joachim a further 5 tons of foodstuffs (peanuts and beans, which represent the main source of fat and proteins in the local diet).

Fr. Joaquim with Sandro Mancinelli

left the road which linked Manhi�a with Calanga

POLANA CANI�O

The Community is distributing food to roughly 60 families who lost their homes in Polana Cani�o, but who continue to live on the edge of the deep chasms which have opened from the subsiding of the phreatic layers. These chasms will soon become open rubbish dumps where many children play. Our "little school" was hit and will be repaired soon.

The opening of the phreatic layer will put the water that supplies the Polana at risk, and indeed a great many of the intestinal infections (including cholera) which appear in this time in Maputo have come from this area..

Landslides at Polana Cani�o after the floods

CHIBUTO E XAI-XAI

In the province of Gaza, the flooding of the Limpopo river has lead to the disappearance of the entire city of Xai Xai. At present, the Limpopo can only be crossed by plane, flying into Chibuto where Fr. Firmino (of the Portuguese Fathers of Boa Nova) is based.

We acquired tools (750 hoes, 250 machetes, 250 poles etc.) for one of the flooded villages of the area, consisting of 250 families, and we have made a contribution towards paying for petrol for the generators (there is no electricity coming from the electric power plant at Chokwe, shut down for security reasons). We will also help by distributing food in the camp of Chibuto (8000 people) where the women managed to create reasonable organisation.

Xai-Xai is particularly suffering from its isolation (they need fuel, light and water). Access to the city is isolated by the water and by police roadblocks who are trying to prevent looting. The most important part of the city, from the administrative, cultural and religious point of view, is completely flooded. In the cathedral, the water is up to two meters deep, but as the bishop has told us, it has not damaged the Blessed Sacrament.

We were also able to meet some members of the community of Xai Xai, who are all safe and are helping the people who are most affected by the floods. We will send trucks with food aid to the Diocese as well.

Fr Firmino in the camp of Chibuto

Xai Xai access to the city: this was the market area and the suburb of Cani�o

Aurora Cateco Sousa with Eduardo, Judite and others of the Community of Xai Xai