The organisations are expected to brief the media on Thursday afternoon, to inform South Africans about the consolidated and urgent relief efforts and their call to action for the victims of Cyclone Idai.

“We are partnering with the churches because this is a disaster that will require the highest level of mobilisation possible, and churches have that footprint and goodwill,” said Red Cross South Africa CEO, Lindel Papiyah.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent teams have accelerated their disease prevention activities among vulnerable communities following new confirmed cases of cholera in Mozambique with the deployment of an Emergency Response Unit to provide clean water for up to 15,000 people a day. 

They were also providing an emergency sanitation unit ready to support 20,000 people a day.

The teams were partnering with the churches in South Africa and calling on other civil society partners and South Africans at large to help mount a larger relief campaign for our neighbours who are in desperate need.

Cyclone Idai has wreaked havoc on Beira and surrounding areas of Mozambique, resulting in loss of communication, damage and destruction to shelter and settlements, health and water and sanitation facilities and thousands of hectares of standing crops, communication infrastructure, with loss of life and injury.

“We know that many more people will die from disease resulting from this tragedy, far more than those lives taken by the cyclone itself. Human lives will need to recalibrate in the new reality, including dealing with hundreds of children orphaned in this disaster. This is an urgent but long term joint effort by us as churches and civil society to help our neighbours that will require consistency of commitment,” Bishop Mpumlwana of SACC said.

African News Agency (ANA)