More regional daily papers have joined forces with aid agencies in the UK and abroad in a bid to relieve the suffering in flood-ravaged Mozambique.

Many titles have devoted several pages to covering the efforts of their readers to raise money for the African state.

• The Evening Chronicle in Newcastle has linked up with the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, to highlight the difference that cash from this country can make to the crisis and has published a large form for people to cut out and send with their donations.
• The Peterborough Evening Telegraph has told how youngsters from its local West Town County Primary School have been donating money for Mozambique and plan fund-raising events including a bring and buy sale and a sponsored fast. The school has taken an interest in events in Mozambique since February of last year, when a National Non-Uniform Day raised funds for children in the war-torn country. The West Town children hoped that their counterparts in Africa would be able to lead normal lives again at the end of the civil war, until they heard about the floods.
• The North West Evening Mail in Barrow told how a local 19-year-old woman was airlifted to Mozambique to help sick and homeless families in the aftermath of the floods.Anne-Marie Vallance was called to join Britain’s mercy mission while serving aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in The Gulf.Her detachment, 820 Naval Air Squadron, has been assigned to the British forces taking part in the helicopter rescue operation.
• The Express & Echo in Exeter reported that an off-duty British Airways crew came to the aid of two Westcountry rescue workers heading to the disaster area who missed their connecting flight in South Africa. Now safely installed in Mozambique, Graham Payne and Nick Spence – part of the charity Rapid UK’s 10-strong rescue team – are the only trained medical staff in a 60-kilometre radius. The newspaper has also been carrying a Unicef donations form
• The Gloucestershire Echo said that charity collectors in Cheltenham High Street were astonished when a woman pensioner handed over £100 for the emergency fund. Many other Echo readers have been generous too, and the town’s two Oxfam shops have collected £1,000 in donations in one week.

For our earlier story on Mozambique click here

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