By: Kelvin Chiringa
A brutal tropical storm known as Cyclone Idai has swept across the southern African region with destructive winds killing more than 150 people over the weekend, as Namibia continue to look up to the havens for rain.
Heavy winds and incessant rains bartered Mozambique, Malawi and barrelled into Zimbabwe leaving hundreds of people missing and more displaced or feared dead.
The disaster cut short a Dubai trip by Zimbabwe’s president Emerson Mnangagwa who rushed home to lead a humanitarian campaign aimed at rescuing affected communities in the eastern parts of the country.
In a Twitter message, Zimbabwe’s information ministry said this past Saturday that at least 24 people were killed as the storm swept away homes and bridges.
“Number of deaths is confirmed at 24 mainly from Chimanimani east. The number of missing people is currently 40 (and) the fatalities include 2 students.”
The death-toll is in the meantime expected to go up, as Zimbabweans took to social media posting images of heavy floods.
Weather experts warned that violent thunderstorms, lightning and strong winds will be experienced in the eastern regions of the country as those in Mozambique cautioned that heavy rain will continue to hammer Beira and surrounding areas until Sunday.
The disaster worsens the food security outlook of the region as Namibian farmers are in the grip of one of the worst droughts to hit the country.
A drought fund collection effort is under way, led by the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU), companies together with the patronage of the minister of agriculture water and forestry, Alpheus !Naruseb.
They envisage to collect N$10 million by end of March for affected commercial farmers.
NAU’s executive manager, Roelie Venter said part of the strategy would be to subsidize feed to make it more affordable for farmers.
He said this time there will not be donations as they wanted to make the process a fair one.
“The agricultural retail outlets (Kaap, Agri and Agra) with their retail branches country-wide would be used to reach farmers, and these subsidized prices will be available in all branches,” the farmers have said.
Meanwhile, a ministerial report for 2018 has state that Namibian households’ food security situation continues to be satisfactory despite the ongoing scourge of drought due to good improvements in agricultural production recorded in the last two seasons, a ministerial report for December 2018 reveals.
