Month: February 2023

Several damage were caused by cyclone Freddy in the city of Mananjary in Madagascar. Four people were killed by the passage of Freddy on the large island of 28 million inhabitants, according to a report given in the morning by the National Office of Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) which did not change during the day.

More than 16,600 Malagasy were affected, with some 4,500 houses flooded or damaged.

France’s weather service Meteo-France said Freddy weakened as it tracked across Madagascar, dropping to an average wind speed of 55 kph.

But, the agency warned, the storm would pick up strength from the warm Mozambique Channel as it headed towards the African mainland.

Cyclone Freddy is expected to land Friday in regions between central and southern Mozambique, more than 500 kilometres north of the capital Maputo, and could reach Zimbabwe.

Mozambique’s government has declared a red alert to allow agencies to prepare for a potential emergency.

Freddy had developed into one of the biggest cyclones in recent years to threaten Madagascar, which is typically lashed several times during the annual November-April storm season.

In the end, it brought less rain than feared but still ripped roofs off buildings and flattened rice fields and fruit trees.

It made landfall north of Mananjary, a coastal town of 25,000 people that remains devastated by last year’s Cyclone Batsirai, which killed more than 130 people.

“The recorded damage is almost only related to the wind.”

– Mozambique next –

Freddy is the first cyclone and the second tropical weather system to hit during Madagascar’s current season, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The storm began to brew in the first week of February off the northwest of Australia and south of Indonesia and is now in its third week trekking across the Indian Ocean.

At its height, Freddy was a “super cyclone”, with average wind speeds of 220 kph and gusts of 320 kph, said Meteo-France’s cyclone specialist for the Indian Ocean, Sebastien Langlade.

The UN’s World Food Programme had estimated more than 2.3 million people in Madagascar could be affected.

The cyclone coincides with a months-long drought in the southern part of the island that has inflicted widespread hunger.

Freddy is expected to make landfall in Mozambique on Friday as a likely tropical storm, bringing the risk of pounding rain and flooding, according to forecasts.

Mozambique is already in the middle of its rain season and the soil is saturated.

Authorities reported that dozens of houses in the central port city of Beira had flooded Wednesday.

Heavy rain could also hit parts of Zimbabwe and South Africa at the weekend.

A cyclone that is intensifying as it approaches the southeastern African coast has been labeled “dangerous” by the United Nation’s weather agency on Monday as nations brace for landfall.

Cyclone Freddy is projected to reach Madagascar on Tuesday evening and hurtle toward Mozambique by the end of the week. The tropical cyclone is equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to dump heavy rain and bring turbulent winds.

A “significant deterioration in weather conditions” is underway, Meteo France’s multi-hazard early warning system predicted Monday. The weather agency said the cyclone is passing around 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from the islands of Mauritius and later Reunion on Monday. Mauritius has already encountered flooding and gale-force winds.

The regional weather observation center on the island of Reunion said that Freddy is currently rushing across the ocean with average wind speeds of 205 kilometers (127 miles) per hour.

It’s feared that up to 2.2 million people, mostly in Madagascar, will be impacted by storm surges and flooding, according to the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System. The Mahanoro, Mananjary and Nosy Varita communes in western Madagascar will be first-hit on Tuesday.

Mozambique will likely be struck on Friday, according to the country’s national meteorology institute. The nation has already experienced widespread flooding in recent weeks, raising fears from the U.N. humanitarian agency that the “severe humanitarian situation in the region” may escalate.

Some five other coastal nations — Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and South Africa — are also vulnerable as Freddy looks set to tear across the Mozambican channel after Wednesday, according to the region’s climate service center.

Last year, scientists were able to show that climate change worsened cyclones in southeast Africa, already a hotspot for tropical storms and cyclones.

In the last 12 months, the region has suffered a significant battering from a number of cyclones and suffered a major loss of life, and property, displacement of large populations, and costly damages to major infrastructure.

“It is hoped that accurate warnings and forecasts will help limit the damage from Tropical Cyclone Freddy,” said U.N. weather agency spokesperson Clare Nullis.

First spotted and named by a monitoring center in Melbourne, Australia, on Feb. 6, Cyclone Freddy has since crossed the entire southern Indian Ocean.

Three UN peacekeepers were killed on Tuesday when their convoy struck a roadside bomb in jihadist-torn central Mali, the mission said, in a fresh blow to the long-running operation.

“A MINUSMA Force convoy hit an Improvised Explosive Device #IED today,” it said in a tweet that gave a preliminary toll of three dead and five seriously injured.

With more than 13,500 military personnel and police, Mali it is one of the biggest but also dangerous UN peacekeeping missions, suffering a high toll especially to IEDs.

In January, UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a report that 165 peacekeepers had died and 687 were wounded in hostile acts since July 2013.

The force recorded 548 IED attacks up to the date of the report, claiming 103 lives and 638 wounded among MINUSMA personnel.

Insecurity

Anger within the Malian military at the government’s failure to roll back the insurgency led to a coup against the elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in August 2020.

The junta wove closer ties with the Kremlin, bringing in Russian paramilitaries and equipment, as relations with France, the country’s traditional ally, spiralled downwards.

France in 2022 withdrew its last troops from Mali deployed under its long-running Barkhane anti-jihadist force in the Sahel.

The junta in Bamako routinely claims that it is gaining the upper hand against the jihadists since it has pivoted to Russia.

On Monday, it protested after the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, last week said that the Malian state was “collapsing” and that the jihadists were gaining ground.

The jihadist insurgency began alongside a revolt by ethnic Tuaregs demanding self-rule in the north of the country in 2012.

France sent in troops to beat back the rebellion, but the jihadists regrouped and expanded into the centre of the country in 2015.

From there, they carried out bloody incursions into neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso.