MOZAMBIQUE: FLOOD BABY ROSITA FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE.

Record ID: 631228

  • Title: MOZAMBIQUE: FLOOD BABY ROSITA FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE.
  • Date: 11th March 2000
  • Summary: CHIBUTO, MOZAMBIQUE (MARCH 10, 2000) (REUTERS) GV: WIDE OF HOSPITAL WHERE SOFIA CHIVURE AND BABY-DAUGHTER ROSITA ARE STAYING GV/ZOOM/CU: CHIVURE WITH ROSITA SITTING IN ROOM (3 SHOTS) GV: WOMEN WAITING TO GIVE BIRTH GV/PAN/CU: CHIVURE CARRYING ROSITA (3 SHOTS) CU: (SOUNDBITE)(Shangaan) SOPHIA CHIVURE SAYING: "I named her Rosita because that's the name of my mother-in-l
  • Embargoed: 26th March 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CHIBUTO AND NORTH OF MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE
  • Country: Mozambique
  • Topics: Disasters,Environment,General,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA375F2RGP1C9B20N7J7VWS1MOK
  • Story Text: Baby Rosita's dramatic birth in a tree above raging floodwaters helped to galvanise world support for Mozambique, but now she and her young mother face an uncertain future.
    Sofia and Rosita Chivure grabbed the world's attention when television viewers around the world saw the minutes-old baby and her mother being winched from a makeshift treehouse into a South African military helicopter on March 1.
    Rosita was born after her 22-year-old mother had been in the tree for five days and only minutes before they were found by one of the helicopters that rescued more than 13,000 people in 10 days.
    A medical officer was winched down from the helicopter to cut the umbilical cord and prepare the mother and daughter for rescue.
    For the South Africans that rescued her and her baby there is nothing but thanks.
    Now, as the flood waters begin to recede and the Mozambican drama moves towards the task of reconstruction, the two face a poverty-stricken and at best, an uncertain future.
    "I don't know what to do know now, I have no plans for the future," Chivure said.
    The two are recovering from their ordeal in a rundown clinic in Chibuto, a rural town 170 km north of the capital Maputo.
    Holding the still delicate Rosita in a protective blanket under her arms, Chivure said she already had two young sons and a husband who is struggling to earn enough money as a labourer in Maputo.She said her husband does not know what happened to them.
    She said she had given his address to a series of aid workers and journalists who had sought her out after her dramatic rescue, but that none had been able to find him.
    Labourers like Chivure's husband do not earn enough money to afford a television set, probably don't read newspapers and remain largely unaware of the tragedies and triumphs played out during the country's worst flood in living memory.
    She said the flood, which inundated their town and rose to rooftop level within two hours, destroyed part of their home and forced them to seek refuge in a tall tree to escape.Her mother-in-law drowned as they tried to escape the deadly surge carried down from South Africa and Zimbabwe by the Limpopo River after Cyclone Eline had brought unprecedented rains.
    Chivure said she did not know what she would do in the future, but that she was determined to move her family to a new area to escape a repeat of the floods, which have killed at least hundreds and displaced millions in one of the world's poorest countries.
    Chibuto is kept going by international food aid delivered by the World Food Programme and USAID.Dry biscuits, white maize and vegetable oil are the difference between life and death.
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