Comores and Mozambique in dire need of assistance after deadly Cyclone Kenneth

Cyclone Kenneth raged Mozambique and the Indian Ocean Island Country Comoros today. Tourists took shelter at Comores airport and Ibo Fort in Mozambique. Thousands were left without access to shelters.

On the tourist island of Ibo in Mozambique, 90 percent of homes for the population of 6,000 is flattened. “I don’t expect to find my hotel undamaged,” said Swiss hotel owner Lucie Amr, who took refuge in the Ibo fort alongside many local residents.

The people of Mozambique are paying the price for dangerous climate change but they have done next to nothing to cause this crisis. Warming waters & rising sea levels are the reason for Indian Ocean cyclones, up to this date there is no record of two storms of such intensity striking Mozambique in the same season

Category three Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in Mozambique as a Category 4 storm packing winds of 160 kilometers an hour. It struck the north coast’s Cabo Delgado province late Thursday after swiping the Comoros islands. It’s the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone ever observed in mainland southeast Africa.

150 000 people in Comores are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. 67,800 are children (0-17 years) and 41,800 women. Preliminary estimates indicate more than 100 people injured. A reader from Comores tweeted eTN: I have never seen any country assisting Comoros. We can only rely on ourselves. Where are our allies? Russia? Saudi Arabia?

The latest numbers in Mozambique are at least 3 dead and this number is most likely climbing. 16,700 people affected, nearly 3,500 homes damages and 3 hospitals destroyed.

Comores reports 3 dead, 100 injured, 20,000 people are left with no shelter.

Comoros, officially the Union of Comoros, is an island country in the Indian Ocean located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel off the eastern coast of Africa between northeastern Mozambique, the French region of Mayotte, and northwestern Madagascar. The capital and largest city in Comoros is Moroni. The religion of the majority of the population is Sunni Islam. At 1,660 km2, excluding the contested island of Mayotte, Comoros is the fourth-smallest African nation by area. Comores is part of the Vanilla Island Tourism Organization.  

Mozambique is a southern African Portuguese speaking nation whose long Indian Ocean coastline is dotted with popular beaches like Tofo, as well as offshore marine parks. In the Quirimbas Archipelago, a 250km stretch of coral islands, mangrove-covered Ibo Island has colonial-era ruins surviving from a period of Portuguese rule. The Bazaruto Archipelago farther south has reefs which protect rare marine life including dugongs.

The African Tourism Board leadership is calling for Africa and the world to unite behind Mozambique and Comores. Vanilla Island Tourism is a member of the African Tourism Board, so is the Ministry of Tourism for Mozambique.

African Tourism Board identified local charities available besides Red Cross and UNICEF. More information click here