South Africa provides support to SADC’s Assessment Mission to the Flood Affected Areas

Pretoria - The Government of South Africa has acceded to a request from the Executive Secretary of SADC, Dr Thomas Salomão to avail an aircraft to undertake an assessment visit to areas affected by the floods in the SADC region.

The aircraft provided by South Africa will transport the Executive Secretary to assess the situation in Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  The Mission will take four days from 23 – 26 January 2008.

The Executive Secretary is expected to submit a report to Member States and other International Partners to mobilise a regional and international response in order to offset the aftermath of this regional humanitarian emergency.

Based on the available information from the SADC Secretariat and other external sources, the current situation in the region is as follows:

• Sustained heavy rains from December 2007 and January 2008 in the SADC Region, have resulted in extensive flooding in Malawi, Mozambique, Southern Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The flooding has led to loss of lives and destruction of property and infrastructure. Preliminary information provided as at January 9 suggests that over 80,000 people have so far been affected across the region with over 50 deaths reported.

• Meteorological analysis suggests that the current rains will continue late into January across most of the SADC Region, particularly in the central and north-eastern parts of the region and Madagascar.

• There is a high probability that the current floods will exacerbate the humanitarian emergencies especially in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa on 082 990 4853

Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001

24 January 2008