President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has lamented that Malawi lost the lives of 679 productive citizens to Tropical Cyclone Freddy, stating that these people had a critical role to play in the development of the economy.
Chakwera made the sentiments in Mulanje on Wednesday when he presided over a memorial service held in honour of hundreds of people who lost their lives to Tropical Cyclone Freddy in March last year.
The President observed that there has been an increase in the intensity of natural disasters, fearing the tragedies will derail the country’s progress, especially the Malawi 2063 development agenda.
“Losing 679 people at the same time is not an ordinary funeral, nor should we forget the 537 people who went with raging waters. These were our brothers in this country, and their lives have been painful. These were the Malawians who were useful, some were useful for raising children, some for farming, some for managing businesses, some for teaching children in school, some for entertaining parents, some for making people laugh and joking, some for working in a company, but all these stopped because of death,” he said.
Chakwera said natural disaster should teach Malawians a lesson that every life is valuable and an important resource for the social and economic development of any country.
He said it is against this background that his government values every life as a treasure.
Chakwera therefore appealed to Malawians to treat one another as useful resources and desist from discriminating one another based on political or regional affiliations.
“These discriminations on the basis of regions are meaningless. Because disasters like Cyclone Freddy remind us that we are all lost because we are all one family. It is possible that there are some people who do not like the way we did it at that time or the way we have done it today, because civil strife is their food. No matter how they feel the smell of the elections, it is a joy because the division and unity of Malawi has never started, but we must not stop this cooperation. We should remember that if the death of the Malawians who left us in Freddy’s accident affects us all, then we are one and we must walk together. According to the words of the late President Bingu wa Mutharika, Let’s walk together with one heart,” he said.
He appealed to people and organizations of goodwill to continue rendering their support to the survivors of the cyclones.
