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Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter
A delegation from the United Arab Emirates yesterday met President Mnangagwa at State House to deliver a message of love and pay condolences following the death of  Zimbabweans due to Cyclone Idai.

The delegation, which was led by the director of development cooperation in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs His Highness Rashid Al Hemiri, was accompanied by Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo.

UAE, which on Sunday delivered a planeload with 95 tonnes of materials to assist victims of the natural disaster, is so far is the single largest donor towards victims of Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe.

Speaking to journalists after meeting the President, His Highness Al Hemiri said they would continue working with Zimbabwe in the field of health and pharmaceuticals.

“I came representing UAE with the message of love from the UAE,” he said.

“We also want to send our condolences to the losses of the cyclone that has affected Zimbabwe. We are also representing a very strong relationship between UAE and Zimbabwe. We think the relationship between Zimbabwe and UAE is very important and we are walking together in the field of health to improve the health service in UAE and Zimbabwe mutually and together.

“Thank you very much for opportunity to meet the President and the Minister of Health. It was a brilliant visit. We visited the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and meeting a lot of people in charge of the health sector. We will walk together with them to provide the health services required.”

Dr Moyo hailed the support that UAE had rendered to Zimbabwe and welcomed commitment of continued support by the country.

“We accept their acknowledgement of the cyclone disaster,” he said.

“We appreciate that they have come all the way from UAE to be with us as we mourn those lives we have lost right through the areas which have been affected by the disaster and at the same time their strong promise that they will continue to support us. That is very important. They are giving us adequate supplies. Yesterday we saw 95 tonnes worthy of supplies coming from them so they are friends in deed. They have indicated that they will continue supporting us.”

Dr Moyo continued: “Besides the cyclone support they are also looking at giving us further support in our institutions which is very good. It’s not a once off support – it’s a continuous relationship that they would like to build with us and we are very happy with that. We want to be able to appreciate their support join the form of the pharmaceutical world so that we have a continuous supply of medicines in Zimbabwe. We want them to give us support in terms of equipment, equipping our health institutions.

“This is a very welcome appreciation by the United Arab Emirates. His Excellencies have met through Heads of State they met and have come up with this solution obviously the initial being the support to cyclone Idai. So, we are very grateful to the UAE for the immediate and for the long term friendship that they want us to build.”