Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa visits scene of 2019 cyclone devastation today

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Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa visits scene of 2019 cyclone devastation today

3:52 CAT | 16 Jan 2020

[Photo file: Sapo Notícias]

The Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is today visiting the region of Mozambique worst affected by the cyclones of 2019, in what he has called a “crucial part” of his visit to this country.

President Rebelo de Sousa, who has been in Mozambique since Monday, is in the centre of the country, “where he will, as promised, learn about the recovery process in a region severely battered by the cyclones that struck Mozambique in 2019,” a statement from the Presidency of the Republic details.

“It had to be a crucial point of my visit to Mozambique,” Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told reporters in Maputo on Wednesday, where he was attending Filipe Nyusi’s inauguration as president for a second term.

The Portuguese president has been in Mozambique since Monday and returns to Lisbon on Saturday.

President Rebelo de Sousa remarked on the solidarity Portugal showed in mobilizing support for the cyclone victims in Mozambique as another justification for his trip to Beira.

The Portuguese president will arrive in Beira at 10:30 a.m. local time on a C-130 Portuguese Air Force plane from Maputo, and return to the capital this evening.

The visit by the Portuguese head of state comes ten months after Cyclone Idai hit a city of half a million residents, poorly prepared to weather the storm.

The president will visit the reconstruction of Beira Central Hospital, a regional reference in central Mozambique, where the surgical, imaging and blood bank blocks rebuilt with Portuguese and Mozambican support were re-opened last November.

By April, work on the psychiatric and gynaecology wings and the orthopaedic and administration should blocks should be complete.

The work is part of one of five applications from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that last week were chosen to receive between them €1.9 million from the Portuguese government’s Mozambican Reconstruction and Development Support Fund, which brings together contributions from the public, city councils, associations, foundations and companies.

President Rebelo de Sousa will also meet Portuguese people resident in the region, including businesspeople who suffered losses in the calamity.

Cyclones Idai and Kenneth struck Mozambique in March and April 2019, killing nearly 700 people – the first time that Mozambique had been hit by two extreme category cyclones in the same rainy season.

President Rebelo de Sousa’ s agenda also includes visits to the Portuguese Consulate General in Beira and an exhibition called “Future Presidents” at the Portuguese Cultural Centre.

Back in Maputo, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will on Friday meet members of a technical-military cooperation team in Maputo, and have lunch with local personalities on the last day of his visit to Mozambique.

Source: Lusa