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The Sudanese, displaced by flooding and torrential rains, are pictured outside their temporary shelters on the side of a road in the town of Osaylat.
- Nile floods have killed 94 people in Sudan.
- The Nile has risen to record levels.
- Heavy rains are expected to continue.
On Sudan’s Tuti Island, where the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet, the river’s higher waters since records began have left people struggling to contain mounting floods.
Nestled between the twin cities of Khartoum and Omdurman, the people of Tuti fill bags with sand and small stones in an often futile attempt to prevent water from flooding their homes.
READ | United States suspends aid to Ethiopia over Blue Nile dam dispute
The longest river in the world gives life, but the Nile also brings misery and misery to many.
“Three days ago, the water invaded my house around midnight,” said Swakin Ahmad, dressed in a red scarf on his head.
“We were sunk to our knees. My husband and I, with our five children, ran away … carrying some things in our hands.”
Record increase
Every year during the rainy season, the river floods and the people of the island wait for the waters to rise.
But nothing in the past compares to today’s flooding, residents say.
“In previous years, we would leave our home for two months to live with friends,” Ahmad said.
“But this year that was impossible, because the water had also entered their homes.”
Civil defense officials say seasonal floods have killed 94 people, injured 46, and destroyed or damaged more than 60,000 homes across Sudan during the current season.
The level of the Blue Nile has risen to 17.57m, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation said this week, breaking all records since measurements began more than a century ago.
But many fear that the worst is yet to come.
Heavy rains are forecast to continue through September, both in Sudan and upriver in neighboring Ethiopia, the source of the Blue Nile.
“Young people tried to rescue things from my house,” Ahmad said. “But it was useless, because they had water up to their necks and they couldn’t see anything.”
Residents have staged improvised bombardments on the water path, but their efforts have been swallowed up by the rising river.
Dam construction
Iqbal Mohamed Abbas, who took in many of those who were forced to leave their homes in his educational center, described “the courage with which the young people tried with simple means to stop the flood”.
He recalled previous occasions when the island was flooded, recalling a tune his grandparents sang decades ago.
“I am proud of these young people who came to try to stop the Nile with their bodies,” Abbas said, reciting the lyrics.
But this time it seems much worse.
Sudan’s Water Ministry predicts this year’s flooding is greater than the 1998 flood, destroying tens of thousands of homes in several states and displacing more than a million people.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that more than 380,000 people have already been affected throughout the country.
The floods occur despite the controversial upstream construction of a 145m-high hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile, and the vast reservoir behind that Ethiopia has begun to fill up.
Both Sudan and Egypt see the mega dam as a threat to their water supplies, but heavy rains in Ethiopia’s highlands have eased fears of short-term water shortages.
But some experts, such as the US-based research and campaign group International Rivers, have warned that changing weather patterns due to climate change could lead to erratic episodes of floods and droughts in the Blue Nile drainage basin.
For the people of Tuti, the reason behind the record floods matters little: the loss of their homes is tragedy.
People preferred to risk drowning rather than leave their property, said psychologist Enshirah Sharaf.
“I had to convince them to leave their homes; it was heartbreaking,” Sharaf said. “There was nothing to do, the water was spilling everywhere.”
The houses of the people were razed.
“I told them that it is possible to rebuild their houses, but that we could not revive the souls that fly by drowning,” Sharaf said.
As residents piled up more sandbags, the army arrived to help.
For Sudan, where military dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled last year, the emergence of aid-bringing soldiers seems like a change from the past.
“I saw his eyes reddened from lack of sleep,” said Hisham Kamal, an army general, who led a convoy of 90 trucks carrying food and sand to stop the waters.
“I came to help,” he said. “It is our duty”.
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