wfn.org | Anglicans caught in devastating floods in Mozambique

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

For more information contact:
Episcopal News Service
Kathryn McCormick
kmccormick@dfms.org
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

2000-051

Anglicans caught in devastating floods in Mozambique

by James Solheim

     (ENS) Members of Anglican churches are among the nearly one 
million people affected by the devastating floods in the 
impoverished south African nation of Mozambique.

     "We are devastated and we need help now," Bishop Dinis 
Sengulane said in a telephone conversation with Jim Rosenthal in 
the London office of the Anglican Communion. "People have no 
homes, no food and even no Bibles--everything had to be left 
behind," the bishop said. "The hospitals are overcrowded with 
people sleeping on the floors. They are suffering from cholera, 
meningitis and deadly malaria. It is an awful sight. I have seen 
it with my own eyes."

     In a report to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief 
in New York, he said that people continue to flee their homes. 
Several priests are missing and houses and churches are 
completely under water. The fund sent a $25,000 emergency grant 
to the Diocese of Lebombo and additional funds will be sent as 
they are received and the needs are more clearly identified.

     Sengulane also reported that the church's archdeacon is 
missing from a city where the "new church is under water and the 
priest has lost everything." One priest reported that 25 people 
who had lost their homes were crowded into his modest rectory.

     While international aid and rescue efforts are finally 
beginning to relieve some of the pressure, "the loss of life and 
infrastructure, including roads, will be a tremendous setback for 
a country that was one of the most successful economic stories of 
1999," said the Rev. Willis Logan of the National Council of 
Churches Africa Office. "The real work will start after the water 
recedes," he added. "That's when we'll see the full extent of the 
destruction. Restoration needs will be enormous."

     Food was finally reaching people who endured days without 
any nourishment, often trapped on rooftops or even in trees. 
Until the roads are rebuilt, however, airlifting food aid will be 
slow and very expensive.

     Britain and the United States are considering proposals that 
would cancel a portion of the country's crippling foreign debt. 
One of the poorest nations on earth, Mozambique owes about $88 
million to creditors and another $30 million to international 
financial institutions such as the World Bank and the 
International Monetary Fund.

     Bishop Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts, who is serving a 
Congressional internship, joined Secretary of the Treasury Larry 
Summers, House Banking Committee chairman Jim Leach, and leaders 
of relief agencies in a call for debt relief.

     While churches, relief agencies and governments respond with 
emergency aid, "It is our hope that Congress will do what it can-
-go one step further for Mozambique by relieving its 
international debts," he testified. "Mozambique and a dozen other 
poor countries will soon qualify for an international plan for 
debt relief, freeing up millions of dollars for each country to 
build better schools, provide better health systems, build roads 
to get goods to markets... or rebuild after flooding that has left 
a million people homeless. For Mozambique, debt relief means 
flood relief," he said.

     After explaining the biblical concept of Jubilee, which 
calls on God's people "to allow the land to lie fallow, to set 
slaves free, to return land to its original owner and to cancel 
debts," Shaw added, "We must seize this historic opportunity to 
take moral action, grounded in Scripture and our compassion for 
those in need. We must seize upon this unique moment, while the 
rest of the world is poised to act, while there is an immense 
intentional grassroots movement for debt relief, and during this 
year 2000--considered a year of Jubilee by many--to make this a 
reality."

     Government officials in Mozambique estimate that it will 
cost at least $65 million to reconstruct the flood zone, which 
lies in the most heavily populated and productive area of the 
nation. In the meantime, it pays $1.4 million in interest each 
week on a debt incurred during the Marxist era of its history, 
part of its legacy of civil war. 

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
News and Information.