Mozambican families hunt for loved ones separated by cyclone

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A young boy makes fire as he plays in Buzi district, 200 kilometers (120 miles) outside Beira, Mozambique on March 23. A second week has begun of efforts to find and help tens of thousands of people after Cyclone Idai devastated a large swath of Mozambique. (AP)

She struggled home with food, her small daughter and the proof she was still alive. Veronica Fatia huddled on a wooden boat that left the cyclone-shattered city of Beira for what was now the unknown: the flooded town of Buzi, which for a week people had been fleeing with little but their clothes. The fishermen’s boats ferry the displaced daily to Beira, sometimes scores at once. But Fatia was going against the tide, up waters that recently carried corpses to the sea. More than a week after Cyclone Idai roared in, the muddy flood waters were still pouring off the river banks, draining what aid workers had called an inland ocean.

After the three-hour boat journey, carrying bags of rice and her 2-year-old daughter, Fatia stepped carefully out of the vessel and walked into the remains of Buzi, looking for her mother, hoping she was still alive. She passed the Jesus Saves Bank now by a nearby three-story building where on the rooftop residents clustered in search of signal for their mobile phones. She passed the people now living in the open along the sandy main road, cooking, mending and a young boy read a textbook. Her mother might be at the school, Fatia decided.

A cry went up as she approached it and people came running. “Mama!” She was there. They embraced on a concrete walkway now littered with cooking fires and tiny children, one nodding off beside a pile of still-warm ashes. “My home is gone, but I’m also happy because I can see my family,” Fatia said. Her mother, Maria Antonio, said she had last seen Fatia the Tuesday before the storm. “I didn’t know anything about her,” she said. “I’m very happy to see her.” But the fate of her other daughter, in Quelimane, remains unknown. It is a common heartbreak for thousands of families in central Mozambique, who have no way to learn about missing loved ones as destroyed communications networks struggle to return. People are desperately searching for family members separated by the flooding, destruction and death brought to the area more than a week ago by Cyclone Idai.

Some will not be as lucky as Fatia. The fishing boats between Buzi and Beira are now a lifeline, braving spattering rain, rolling waves and still the punching stench of death. Near Buzi, a dog’s carcass hung from the branches of a tree. (AP)

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