Families of victims of Cyclone Idai which devastated Chimanimani and Chipinge in March 2019, will finally get closure as government moves to officially declare missing persons as dead.
The government will make this declaration after a class action filed at the High Court was unopposed for the 279 people who remain missing after Cyclone Idai which devastated parts of Manicaland province, almost five years ago leaving hundreds of families in limbo.
In a report from the provincial state-owned newspaper, a legal officer with the Attorney-General’s Office in Mutare, Mr Peter Garwe who is overseeing the case told The Manica Post that the process is close to finalisation.
He said the 279 missing victims will now be declared legally dead by the High Court sitting in Mutare in an unopposed class action initiated by Attorney-General Mrs Virginia Mabiza.
“We are waiting for the High Court to avail the date to declare the class action as per our application,” said Garwe.
The class action saves affected family members from incurring costs of individually going through death declaration processes which any affected citizen can initiate five years after a person goes missing and or is presumed dead as stated by the Missing Persons Act.
The publication reports that relatives of these missing persons interviewed have accepted demise of their loved ones most probable in a welcome closure provided by this legal declaration of death.
When Cyclone Idai hit Zimbabwe in 2019 around 340 people were affected with only recovered bodies found to be less than one hundred, leaving at least 279 persons officially declared as missing.
Survivors lacked answers long after the disaster, preventing closure, healing and loss of identity, part of psychosocial impacts of climate change which are foundational for other social problems, such as conflict over resources, gendered violence, and trafficking, among others.
Family members of the missing persons were left vulnerable as access to documentation, services and post disaster adaptation assistance proved difficult without death certificates of their missing relatives.
Cyclone Idai disaster exposed community vulnerabilities demanding robust and responsive Disaster Risk Management (DRM) systems to ensure responses which centre on equity and human rights at the core of decision-making and action on climate change.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) welcomes this positive development and calls for the setting up of robust social and child protection systems that are sensitive to disaster situations to take care of children and other vulnerable people. Also there should be expedient procedures for replacing academic and identity documents lost in disasters, provision of shelter, and extending education and health assistance during and after disasters.