Ramaphosa expresses sadness at disasters in Morocco and Libya

President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed his sadness at two recent natural disasters in North Africa, resulting in deaths of close to 8 000 people collectively.

More than 2 000 people died in an earthquake last weekend in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, while more than 5 000 people perished due to floods associated with Storm Daniel in eastern Libya. The trail of destruction also left tens of thousands of residents displaced.

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Ramaphosa said South Africans felt the loss and pain by the citizens of both countries.

“South Africa shares the pain and loss felt by the people of eastern Libya and Morocco. These disasters highlight, once more, the frailty of life when confronted with the forces of nature.”

NGO, Gift of the Givers, said its search and rescue and medical teams would be sent to Morocco if the country requested their help. The NGO, usually among top world responders to these natural disasters, said it was ready to assist.

“Admirably, the government is managing the crisis internally. The armed forces and other sectors of society have been deployed. From our understanding offers of international aid have not been taken up as yet,” it said on Saturday.

ALSO READ: ‘Finished here’: A village vanishes in Morocco’s quake

Rescue efforts

It was delicate work for the searchers to remove a woman’s body from the rubble of a ravaged village in Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in more than six decades, reported AFP.

Her 25-year-old fiancé, Omar Ait Mbarek, watched the digging on Sunday with his eyes red and full of tears, and surrounded by onlookers. His village was just kilometres from the quake epicentre in the Atlas Mountains.

He was on the phone with her when the tremors started late Friday and he heard kitchen utensils crash to the floor before the line cut out. He knew she was gone.

“What do you want me to say? I’m wounded,” he told AFP after Mina Ait Bihi, weeks from becoming his wife, was carried away in blankets to a makeshift cemetery that already held 68 others.

ALSO READ: Gift of the givers ‘on standby’ to support Morocco earthquake victims