International Relations Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu has thanked local and international donors who have contributed aid to the victims of the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
Sisulu was speaking during a handover ceremony of emergency relief from the Chinese diaspora in South Africa.
At least 67 people died in the floods.
Chinese nationals have contributed over a million rand worth of humanitarian aid.
Sisulu says there is no end to kindness. “You know, there’s no end to kindness. Kindness is an inexhaustible nature of human beings and our international community does have that kind of unending gift. We have been to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi dealing with the aftermath of Idai, but we didn’t expect that it will happen to us. Somehow our focus was on the other matter. Somehow, it struck us overnight without any preparation, without any alert system indicating that somehow we would be struck by this disaster.”
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu together with Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube have welcomed the the donation of emergency relief such a blankets, food and clothes by the Chinese community residing in the country. Pictured Chinese ambassador Lin Songtian handing over donations. pic.twitter.com/3MCLrX43av
— KZNCOGTA (@kzncogta) April 26, 2019
The eThekwini Municipality estimates that the interim cost of damage caused by the recent floods is around R658 million. The assessment has been done by various municipal departments.