Humanitarian Crisis In Madagascar As Cyclone Kills 20, Displaces 55,000
NDTV
Some 77 percent of Madagascar's 28 million people live below the poverty line and the latest blow comes during a severe drought in the south which has plunged more than a million people into acute malnutrition, some facing famine.
Cyclone Batsirai swept out of Madagascar on Monday after killing 20 people, displacing 55,000 and devastating the drought-hit island's agricultural heartland, leading the UN to warn of a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Madagascar was already reeling from a tropical storm which killed 55 people late last month, and the latest extreme weather event came as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the continent is "bearing both the brunt and the cost" of global warming.
After drenching the fellow Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, Batsirai made landfall in Madagascar's east on Saturday evening bringing heavy rain and winds of 165 kilometres (102 miles) per hour.
Jean Benoit Manhes, a representative of UN children's agency UNICEF in the country, told AFP on Monday that "Batsirai left Madagascar this morning at 7 am (0400 GMT) heading out into the Mozambique Channel."
