Air force steps in for Mozambique

More than 1,000 Mozambique flood victims are said to owe their lives to the unsung heroes of Malawi’s small air force, who, with the South Africans, were the first to respond to the country’s international flood rescue appeal.

But a Reuters report said, there were no television cameras at hand when Malawian pilots flew daily rescue sorties in the flooded Save River basin last week helping lift over 1,000 people to safety. While the South Africans flew their dangerous missions from Maputo into the flooded Limpopo River valley, two helicopters of the Malawi Air Force and a third chartered by them from South Africa were performing similar miracles from Beira some 600 km (370 miles) to the north.

“It was sometimes risky but we had to save lives,” Major Augustine Masamba told Reuters. “You have to save people before you can feed them. You can’t feed dead people.”