Mozambique: Portuguese Red Cross campaign raises €2.48M for Cyclone Idai victims

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Mozambique: Portuguese Red Cross campaign raises €2.48M for Cyclone Idai victims

8:34 CAT | 01 Jul 2019

Photo: Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa

A joint campaign by the Portuguese Red Cross and the country’s branch of Doctors Without Borders to support cyclone victims in Mozambique has raised €2,480,000, according to organisers of Operation Embondeiro, as it is called.

“All the support received, as published online, as part of Operation Embondeiro were of great importance for the humanitarian support that the Portuguese Red Cross (CVP) and Doctors Without Borders have undertaken in the country, more specifically for victims of Cyclone Idai,” which devastated parts of Mozambique in March, they told Lusa.

“So far 2,485,335.46 euros have been raised online, with expenses equally public,” the CVP added.

So as to make the campaign as transparent as possible, the CVP sought the help of an external auditor to “ensure the transparency and correct use of the funds raised”.

The CVP has sent, by air and sea, more than 150 tons of donations in kind, especially foodstuffs, and is also rebuilding the health centre and maternity facility in Macurungo/Beira, work on which began this month and which “will be inaugurated by [Portugal’s] President … Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the coming months,” the CVP said.

In the training of local health staff, the Portuguese Red Cross Higher Schools of Health were involved, with a training plan adapted to the reality of Mozambique being drawn up.

Cyclone Idai hit above all Sofala district, particularly the city of Beira, on the night of 14 March. On 24 March the CVP, in conjunction with the Mozambican Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), transported to the region on its first humanitarian flight a medical team and 35 tons of equipment for a camp hospital, which was set up in front of the Macurungo health unit that was destroyed by the cyclone.

Since then, the unit has been staffed by doctors, nurses, psychologists and logistics experts, on 25-day rotation. So far, more than 4,000 visits by patients, 2,535 appointments and 1,500 operations have been logged, including 123 deliveries of babies, according to the CVP website.

Operation Embondeiro is set to end in November 2019, when the CVP is to leave Beira with the “training of local experts and works done”, the organisation states.

Overall, Cyclone Idai claimed 604 lives and affected some 1.8 million people.

The following month Mozambique was struck by another cyclone, Kenneth, which swept through the north of the country, killing 45 people and affecting 250,000.

Source: Lusa