By Samuel Abuya
A church in Mozambique, the Maria Auxiliadora parish, has become home to almost 1,000 people of other different faiths, a majority of them Muslims, as they wait to see the next step after the latest cyclone to devastate the country.
The church is located in the heart of the predominantly Muslim but diverse area, is now a haven to those displaced by the cyclone Kenneth in the Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado.
“We don’t ask about people’s religions, human life is all we value,” the 41-year-old Father Ricardo Filipe Rosa Marques who is in charge of the parish said.
According to the government statistics, at least 41 people lost their lives in the storm following the Cyclone Kenneth on Thursday that also made humanitarian situation in the area dire.
Mozambique was hit by two cyclones in a span of one month, the cyclone Idai being the first.
The church has suspended mass and other routine programmes to offer shelter, something which is most important, for cyclone survivors.
“There can be no better mass than giving people shelter and hope. That is the church’s mission,” the priest said.
“I had never been in a church before….but as long as I am safe I don’t mind,” said Aamilah Felciano, who is Muslim. “It doesn’t mean I have abandoned my faith, I am just saving my life.”
Women and children make a majority of those who sought refuge in the church together with their little belongings that they managed to salvage out of the storm. Children are so free to even sit on the priest’s chair and playing around the church. Woman and children sleep in the main church hall while the men sleep on the balcony.
The Maria Auxiliadora parish is housing more than 900 people and another 200 people also sheltering at other church centres in the city.
Africa Global News Publication
