Kuwait’s Islamic Heritage Revival Society has completed its three day work of distributing the food items into three different districts of Chikwawa, Mulanje and Chiradzulu respectively from 21-23rd February 2015.
The three districts were chosen because they are among the fifteen districts which were declared by the president as disaster zone.
The United Nations estimates the death toll from the torrential rains from 79 to more than 200 with least 174,000 people displaced and 638,000 affected.
So far, about 200 evacuation camps for displaced people have been set up and the need for the food and other assistance is still enormous.
The UN’s World Food Programme last month said it urgently needs $18m to continue food assistance and Malawi’s president, Professor Arthur Peter wa Mutharika, said the damage will cost 23.9bn kwacha and declared half the country a disaster zone.
Mutharika has been urging the international community to assist while it slowly working alongside the UN and NGOs in recovering efforts.
Refugees in their own country
Many victims in the evacuation camps are feared to contract communicable diseases such as scabies and Diarrhoea. They face many problems on day to day basis such as lack of sleeping mats, kitchen utensils, food etc and the tents are not just enough.
Sheikh Jasem Muhammad Al-Ainati who is the head of Society’s African Continent Department said that his organisation rushed to provide assistance following the appeal made by Muslim Association of Malawi , the Malawian Ambassador to Kuwait as well as world news.
“Am sure everyone is aware that heavy rains which resulted into disastrous floods has killed more than three hundred people and left thousands homeless” He said.
Al-Ainati added that “We came to assist the victims with these food items but we have realized that the damages are just huge and the people need more assistance, we will therefore go back and ask our friends in Kuwait for more aid in Sha- Allah.
The distribution has been implemented in collaboration between Kuwait’s Islamic Heritage Revival Society and Muslim Association of Malawi.
Sheikh Idriss Muhammad Chairman of Muslim Association of Malawi thanked the Kuwait organisation and the people of Kuwait for this timely assistance. He said “We thank sheikh Jasim Al-Ainati and his country for responding to our call. We also hope that they will come back again for more assistance because the damages are just unbearable.”
