Chinese Community in Malawi donates to Cyclone Freddy victims

LILONGWE, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese community in Malawi has donated relief items worth about 45 million Malawian kwacha (about 44,000 U.S. dollars) and a check of cash for 30 million Malawian kwacha to the Malawian government to support thousands of people who have been displaced by Cyclone Freddy.

Gu Mu, the representative of the Chinese community, presented the donation to Malawian Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare Jean Sendeza in the national capital of Lilongwe, saying the donation is part of the Chinese community's corporate social responsibility to the people of Malawi.

Gu, who is managing director for Huawei Malawi, said the donation has also been made considering the cordial relationship that exists between Malawi and China.

"The Chinese community is an organization joined by several Chinese companies of different sectors, so being here for a long time, and hearing a call from the Malawian government, we thought of coming in to assist those impacted by Cyclone Freddy," explained Gu.

Receiving the donation on behalf of the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), Sendeza hailed the Chinese community for responding to President Lazarus Chakwera's earlier appeal for humanitarian support following the devastation that Cyclone Freddy caused in southern Malawi.

She described the donation as timely, saying hundreds of thousands of Malawians are in dire need of food, clothes and shelter, among other amenities.

"The president called all of us to hold hands during this period, and our Chinese community has done just that at a right time," said the minister. "On behalf of all Malawians and our President Lazarus Chakwera, we thank the Chinese community and the People's Republic of China for what they have done to us."

China Railway-20, another Chinese company, has volunteered to repair a road that was destroyed by the cyclone in Malawi's border district of Nsanje.

Since March 12 when it made a landing in Malawi from Mozambique, Cyclone Freddy has killed 511 people, with 533 people reported missing, and 562,415 people displaced, according to the update released by the DoDMA Wednesday evening.