Mozambique is reeling after an unprecedented two cyclones swept ashore within six weeks, wreaking havoc and leaving hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced.
As relief efforts continue, Birgit Holm, director of the Mozambican non-governmental development organisation ADPP, discusses the impoverished southern African country's next steps on the road to recovery following Cyclones Idai and Kenneth:"They have had a very big impact, obviously." Though the first storm was much bigger than the second,"that didn't make the second one any better", said Holm, who has almost four decades of experience in Mozambique with ADPP.
"It sets back Mozambique, already a country which is very poor and with many different problems, so this has just been disastrous.""The big need is for those with some means and some funding to go in and rehabilitate all the infrastructure that was destroyed. Because so many people also lost their homes and livelihoods, it's not only a question of infrastructure," said Holm.
"The fact that the two cyclones came within six weeks, it's never happened – ever. And the size of these cyclones and the fact they were so big because of the very high temperatures in the sea, that is not going to be different in the future. It's going to be worse. For several years in Mozambique,"we've had drought in the south, and people are suffering from that. Then we have floods in the centre and the north. So all these things have to be thought of in a different way from before.
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