Alda Lucas Balide is expecting her sixth child, but carrying this child to term will be different from past pregnancies. Unlike before, the 33-year-old has contracted maternal anaemia and malaria – a major cause of maternal mortality in southern Africa.
Her house was destroyed and her medication washed away by Cyclone Kenneth which made landfall in northern Mozambique on April 25, weeks after Cyclone Idai pounded the country’s central region killing over 600 people.
Balide is among an estimated 10,000 pregnant women in the coastal Cabo Delgado province affected by the fierce storm.
As with many poor pregnant women and new mothers in the country’s poorest region, Balide has to start from scratch preparing for the newborn, but starting over will be no easy feat.
“I have the food to give strength for the birth and I know I will make it, but I don’t know what I will give to this
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