Floods force residents to abandon homes in Maputo city

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Floods force residents to abandon homes in Maputo city

12:38 CAT | 11 Feb 2020

Photo: O País

At least 20 families in Maputo’s Ferrovário neighbourhood have been forced their homes by floods. Those unable to leave are seeking accommodation with neighbours, and their future is uncertain.

Ferrpviário is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Maputo, its age paralleled by the almost equally old problem of flooding whenever it rains. Still, there are residents there who say they have nowhere to go.

Rain has been falling since Sunday afternoon. so it couldn’t be otherwise. The paths that give access to the low-lying Ferroviário neighbourhood are narrow and often overgrown. The first thing one notices is a completely flooded church, perhaps a sign that rain may bring blessings, but also days without worship.

Within the neighbourhood, the streets, wide or narrow, are filled with stagnant black [sewage] water, blocking access to houses and leaving homeowners desperate.

In the midst of this despair, at least 20 families have been forced out of their homes.

Azarias Bila has lived in Ferroviário for 38 years. He remembers walking relaxed through the streets, something he hadn’t done since the 2000 floods.

“Since that year (2000), whenever it rains, we have a bad time with floods,” Bila, one of Ferroviário’s oldest residents, says.

With the seasonal floods again forcing many residents out of their homes, but unable to follow suit, Azarias is a resigned spectator of his neighbours’ departure.

“We are still here because we are unable to build [a house elsewhere], but we do have some land, and little by little we are trying to gather some money to get [on with] it,” Bila says confidently.

But some families do not enjoy the same good fortune. Unable to leave their homes, they have been looking for accommodation in the neighbourhood, the better to watch their own misfortune at close range.

“They always turn to neighbours for somewhere to sleep and do their day-to-day activities,” Ferroviário resident Márcia Jordão says, describing what her guests had left behind.

“They left beds, tables and chairs in their houses. Everything is submerged. They only managed to rescue some capulanas and a few other things from the flood water.”

In fact, Márcia Jordão extends her hand to these neighbours, the municipal authorities having turned their backs on them.

“The last time it rained, they (the families) were in a higher area, and they stayed there for three months while they were trying to look for another place for them to stay – but so far, nothing,” she says.

City officials recently posted a sign prohibiting further construction in Ferroviário, but there is still no answer to the suffering of the neighbourhood’s older residents.

By Dário Cossa

Source: O País