Torrential rains were expected to continue into Thursday and floodwaters were still rising, according to aid groups trying to get food, water and clothing to desperate survivors. It will be days before Mozambique's inundated plains drain toward the Indian Ocean and even longer before the full scale of the devastation is known.

People have been clinging to trees and huddling on rooftops since the cyclone roared in over the weekend, and aid groups were desperately trying to rescue as many as they can. The United Nations humanitarian office said the town of Buzi, with some 200,000 people, was at risk of becoming at least partially submerged.

"Floodwaters are predicted to rise significantly in the coming days and 350,000 people are at risk," the U.N. office said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa received a somber welcome in the hard-hit mountain community of Chimanimani near the border with Mozambique. Zimbabwean officials have said some 350 people may have died.

"We do not want to hear that anyone has died of hunger," Mnangagwa said.

Clutching a bag of his few remaining possessions, Amos Makunduwa described the devastation with one stark sentence. "There is death all over," he said.

"It is beginning to smell really bad," he added. "The whole area is like one big body of water, huge rocks and mud. There are no houses, as if no one ever stayed here."

The force of the flood waters swept some victims from Zimbabwe down the mountainside into Mozambique, officials said. "Some of the peasants in Mozambique were calling some of our people to say, 'We see bodies, we believe those bodies are coming from Zimbabwe,'" said a local government minister, July Moyo.

Entire villages were swept away, said Gen. Joe Muzvidziwa, who was leading the military's rescue efforts in Zimbabwe. Some people had been out at beer halls when the cyclone hit and came home to find nothing left.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said late Tuesday that more than 200 people were confirmed dead in his country. After flying over the affected region on Monday, he said he expected the death toll to be more than 1,000.

Aid workers were shocked as they arrived in the Mozambique port city of Beira, estimated to be 90 percent destroyed. The 500,000 residents of the city, which has some neighborhoods that are below sea level, were scrambling for food, fuel and medicine.

"The power of the cyclone is visible everywhere, with shipping containers moved like little Lego blocks," said Marc Nosbach, Mozambique country director for the aid group CARE.

In footage shot by South African broadcaster eNCA, food and other supplies were dropped from a helicopter to a survivor standing waist-deep in water outside Beira. Another man clinging to a tree branch was hoisted to safety. Rescuers cradled small children, keeping them warm.

Meanwhile, international aid started trickling in.

"Everyone is doubling, tripling, quadrupling whatever they were planning" in terms of aid, said Caroline Haga of the Red Cross in Beira. "It's much larger than anyone could ever anticipate."

The United Arab Emirates pledged $4.9 million to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, the Emirates News Agency reported, citing the Emirates Red Crescent. Norway said it was providing $700,000.

The chairman of the African Union Commission said it would provide $350,000 in immediate support to the countries, and the United Nations allocated $20 million.

The European Union released $3.9 million in emergency aid, and Britain pledged up to $7.9 million. Tanzania's military has sent 238 tons of food and medicine, and three Indian naval ships have been diverted to Beira to help with evacuations and other efforts.

Sacha Myers of the nonprofit Save the Children described overflowing rivers and dams, and said getting in aid was difficult, with roads and bridges washed away or submerged in the region.

Hunger and illness were growing concerns, with crops destroyed and waterborne diseases likely to spread.

"There are large areas where people are really finding it difficult to find sources of clean water," said Gert Verdonck, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Beira.

"On top of all of that, there's the issue of how to treat people who fall sick, with so many health centers damaged or destroyed."

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Associated Press writers Andrew Meldrum and Cara Anna in Johannesburg and Matt Sedensky in New York contributed to this report.
 

U.S. Africa Command has expanded its counterterrorism mission in Somalia with the number of airstrikes tripling since April 2017 — a spike that coincides with a Trump administration policy to grant military commanders broader authority. During that time, AFRICOM public statements announcing strikes have repeatedly said that no civilians were believed to have been caught in the raids.

However, Amnesty International in a report released Wednesday found five incidents in which 14 civilians were killed and eight injured in strikes. During its investigation, Amnesty said it found “credible evidence” that U.S. strikes in Lower Shabelle — an administrative region in southern Somalia — were responsible for four of the incidents and that the fifth was “most plausibly” caused by a U.S. airstrike.

The reported attacks happened between April 2017 and December 2018.

“In the incidents presented in this report, civilians were killed and injured in attacks that may have violated international humanitarian law (IHL) and could, in some cases, constitute war crimes,” Amnesty International said in its report called “The Hidden U.S. War in Somalia.”

Hours before the release of the Amnesty report, AFRICOM announced that it carried out another strike in Somalia, which it said killed three terrorists.

“Also, we are aware of reports alleging civilian casualties resulting from this airstrike,” AFRICOM said in a Tuesday statement. “As with any allegation of civilian casualties we receive, U.S. Africa Command will review any information it has about the incident, including any relevant information provided by third parties.”

Regarding the Amnesty report, AFRICOM said Tuesday: “Our assessments found that no AFRICOM airstrike resulted in any civilian casualty or injury. Our assessments are based on post-strike analysis using intelligence methods not available to non-military organizations.”

During its investigation, Amnesty International said it interviewed retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, former head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, who described targeting methods to the group.

While Bolduc did not oversee the five incidents detailed in the report, Amnesty said targets were considered to be lawful based on four criteria: “age, gender, location, and geographical proximity to Al-Shabaab,” the report said.

“According to General Bolduc, all military-aged males observed with known Al-Shabaab members, inside specific areas — areas in which the US military has deemed the population to be supporting or sympathetic to Al-Shabaab — are now considered legitimate military targets,” Amnesty reported.

In a response to the AI report, AFRICOM said “BG Buldoc’s [sic] purported articulation of targeting standards does not accurately reflect the targeting standards of AFRICOM or the [Department of Defense].”

The report spotlights a military campaign that has steadily intensified for several years, generally away from the public eye.

While AFRICOM publicizes its many airstrikes in the country, its assertions about no civilian casualties are getting more scrutiny. Amnesty also said not all strikes are publicly acknowledged by AFRICOM. In its response to Amnesty’s allegations, AFRICOM said in four of the strikes at issue, civilian casualties were unlikely “based on contradictory intelligence that cannot be disclosed because of operational security limitations.”

AFRICOM denied carrying out the fifth incident listed by Amnesty.

Amnesty called on the U.S. to conduct an independent investigation, acknowledge civilian casualties and offer compensation to the families of survivors.

The Pentagon says it has about 500 military personnel in Somalia, where AFRICOM conducted 47 airstrikes in 2018 and 35 the year before. So far, AFRICOM has launched about 30 strikes in 2019.

Somalia has emerged as AFRICOM’s main effort during the past three years. U.S. special operations troops also serve on the front lines in the country as advisers to government forces.

The military push comes ahead of the anticipated departure in 2020 of a multinational African force, which has led the decadelong battle in Somalia against the insurgents. The U.S. aim is to weaken the group and prepare government forces to lead the fight once the African Union force ends its deployment.

Amnesty said security concerns and access restrictions prevented it from doing on-site investigations for its probe. Instead, interviews took place in-person or over encrypted voice calls placed from phones located outside al-Shabab-held territory, the organization said.

Amnesty said it interviewed 65 witnesses and survivors of the five alleged U.S. airstrikes at issue.

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"This is the worst humanitarian crisis in Mozambique's recent history," said Jamie LeSueur, head of response efforts in Beira for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. At least 400,000 people were left homeless.

The rapidly rising floodwaters created "an inland ocean" in Mozambique, endangering tens of thousands of families, aid workers said as they scrambled to rescue survivors of Cyclone Idai and airdrop food, water and blankets.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said the death toll could reach 1,000.

Emergency workers called it the region's most destructive flooding in 20 years. Heavy rains were expected to continue through Thursday.

"This is a major humanitarian emergency that is getting bigger by the hour," said Herve Verhoosel of the World Food Program. Many people were "crammed on rooftops and elevated patches of land outside the port city of Beira" and WFP was rushing to rescue as many as possible, he said.

Mozambique's Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, creating "inland oceans extending for miles and miles in all directions," Verhoosel said. Dams were at 95 percent to 100 percent capacity.

"People visible from the air may be the lucky ones and the top priority now is to rescue as many as possible," he said.

The extent of the damage was not yet known as many areas remained impassible. With key roads washed away, aid groups were trying to get badly needed food, medicine and fuel into hard-hit Beira, a city of some 500,000 people, by air and sea.

Cyclone Idai swept across central Mozambique before dropping huge amounts of rain in neighboring Zimbabwe's eastern mountains. That rainfall is now rushing back through Mozambique, further inundating the already flooded countryside.

"It's dire," Caroline Haga of the Red Cross told The Associated Press from Beira. "We did an aerial surveillance yesterday and saw people on rooftops and in tree branches. The waters are still rising and we are desperately trying to save as many as possible."

Satellite images were helping the rescue teams target the most critical areas, Haga said. Rescue operations were based at Beira airport, one of the few places in the city with working communications.

The waters flooded a swath of land more than 30 miles wide in central Mozambique putting more than 100,000 people at risk, said the aid group Save the Children.

"The assessment emerging from Mozambique today is chilling," said Machiel Pouw, Save the Children's response leader in Mozambique. "Thousands of children lived in areas completely engulfed by water. In many places, no roofs or tree tops are even visible above the floods."

"The full horror, the full impact is only going to emerge over coming days," Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane told reporters in Geneva.

Torrential rain was still lashing the region on Tuesday, and Buzi town could be entirely submerged within 24 hours, the aid group said.

Hardest hit was Beira, where thousands of homes were destroyed.

The city and surrounding areas were without power and nearly all communication lines were destroyed. Beira's main hospital was also badly damaged. Large areas to the west of Beira have been severely flooded and flood waters have completely covered homes, telephone poles and trees, the Red Cross said.

Beira could face a "serious fuel shortage" in the coming days, WFP said, and its power grid was expected to be non-functional through the end of the month.

The nearby cities of Dondo and Chimoio were also badly affected.

In Zimbabwe the death toll rose to 98, the government said. The mountain town of Chimanimani was badly hit. Several roads leading into the town were cut off, with the only access by helicopter. Residents expected the death toll to rise.

"We did over 38 burials this morning," Absolom Makanga, a Salvation Army divisional commander, told the AP. "It is difficult. We have to walk long distances because the roads are cut off but also because sometimes the graves are then washed away."

Among those fleeing on foot was Luckmore Rusero, who carried a small bag with his remaining possessions. His wife carried their 1-year-old child while their 11-year-old son struggled to keep pace as they joined many others in seeking refuge.

"Thank God we survived. There are no roads, no transport, so we have been walking for more than 20 kilometers now through the forests and the mountains," Rusero said.

Some escaped with nothing but their lives.

"I fled naked," Tecla Chagwiza said. "I only received clothes in the morning from well-wishers who are also helping me with food." She said her family's home was destroyed and three neighbors were dead. Others were missing.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa arrived in the area on Tuesday, saying a number of countries, including the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola, were offering aid.

The U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe said the U.S. was also "mobilizing to provide support" to partners in the three affected countries, but provided no details. The European Union and Britain also pledged aid.

Malawi's government confirmed 56 deaths, three missing and 577 injured in the flooding, which caused rivers to burst their banks, leaving many houses submerged and around 11,000 households displaced in the southern district of Nsanje.

Neighboring Tanzania's military airlifted some 238 tons of emergency food and medicine to the three countries.

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Meldrum reported from Johannesburg.
 

The move is the latest step by the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to suppress dissent. In recent years, Egypt has launched an unprecedented crackdown on reporters and the media, imprisoning dozens and occasionally expelling some foreign journalists.

The new regulations, published in the official gazette late Monday, allow the Supreme Media Regulatory Council to block websites and accounts for "fake news," and impose stiff penalties of up to 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,400), all without having to obtain a court order.

The nine-page document gave a broad list of prohibited topics, including "anything inciting violating the law, racism, intolerance, violence, discrimination between citizens or hatred."

Media outlets that continue to publish "offending material" will be fined up to five million Egyptian pounds (around $298,000).

Critics said some of the measures were stricter than those approved by lawmakers last July, which they said gave the government almost total control over the media.

Chief regulator Makram Mohammed Ahmed refused to comment.

Prominent Egyptian journalists called the measures unconstitutional, saying they grant far-reaching powers to authorities to censor the media, in violation of basic press freedoms.

Gamal Abdel-Rahim, a board member of the journalists' union, said the regulatory council had ignored all of the union's notes and comments on the new measures.

"Blocking websites is not included in the laws. The constitution itself states that websites and newspapers cannot be shut down without a court order," Abdel-Rahim said.

Another board member, Mohamed Abdel-Hafiz, said he and fellow members of the journalists' union will mount a legal challenge to the new measures, which he said "legalize media censorship."

Since late 2017, some 500 websites including news outlets and rights groups have been blocked, according to a recent report by an Egyptian watchdog group, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression.

Egypt remains among the world's worst jailers of journalists, behind China and Turkey, according to the press freedom group the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Authorities say the measures are necessary to prevent instability as Egypt struggles to revive its economy and combat an Islamic insurgency in northern Sinai. El-Sissi has frequently suggested political rights are less important than the right to food, housing and other necessities, and has rolled back many of the freedoms won by the 2011 uprising against longtime autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.