Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL) Group, the world’s leading mail and logistics services provider, has ended its first Disaster Response Team (DRT) deployment in Africa. On Friday April 12, 2019 the last DRT members moved out of Beira, where cyclone Idai the month before damaged over 700,000 hectares of crops, and destroyed close to 200,000 homes.[1] The team, in its time there, moved nearly 800 tonnes of incoming humanitarian aid from approximately 50 aircraft for further distribution to those displaced and affected by this natural disaster.

DPDHL Group’s DRT was deployed at Beira Airport between March 24 and April 12, 2019 at the request of the United Nations. 12 DHL volunteers from Mozambique, South Africa and United Arab Emirates worked in rotation across three teams. Over the course of nearly three weeks, the volunteers handled incoming relief goods and coordinated incoming humanitarian aid for the United Nations and international relief organizations.

Chris Weeks, Director for Humanitarian Affairs at Deutsche Post DHL Group who headed up the deployment said, “This particular deployment was groundbreaking for us in that it was our first mission to Africa. The challenges however were familiar and within the first few days of arriving the DRT firmly established its coordination expertise in the supply chain of incoming humanitarian aid.” He continued, “All too often the sudden influx of relief aid to an airport creates bottlenecks and aid is unable to get out in a timely manner. This was precisely the scenario the team was trying to avoid and able to do so successfully.”