From smiles of rains that crops are to grow, sorrow followed after the heavy downpour that lasted for a couple of days a week ago leading to floods in many districts across Malawi.
At least 56 people have been recorded to have died due to the floods according to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) while 557 have been injured.
A total of 184,589 households have been affected with an approximate of 922,949 people being forced to abandon their shattered homes to nearby camps.
An assessment done in Phalombe district revealed that a total of 1152 learners who are boys and 1341 learners who are girls have affected by the floods from 8 schools zones in the district.
Responding to the disaster, various stakeholders have donated relief items to the victims across the country, among the items being blankets, buckets, maize flour.
Though the response to the victims has been noted to be quite good, stakeholders have failed to come to the rescue of school going students who have lost their books and notebooks due to the floods.
Spot checks in some camps in Phalombe district showed students drying their notebooks on the sun for them to use in schools.
Rhoda Kimu from Bona village explained that most of the learners have lost their school materials due to the floods that hit the district.
“We have lost our domestic animals, houses, everything that we were depending on and we need to start rebuilding what we had before the floods” said Kimu.
Her explanation to the calamity coupled by poverty to many citizens in the rural set up who are also recorded to have been affected due to improper housing, reveal that many parents are to fail to provide school necessities like notebooks.
