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Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the floods in Africa. Clean water is becoming scarce, this is devastating in Corona’s view.
The century’s flood claims dozens of deaths: 100,000 people have to sleep on the streets of Sudan, 100 people have already died there in the floods.
Video: AP / Tamedia
On the African continent, 1.2 million people are currently affected by severe flooding as a result of unusually heavy rains. Hundreds of people died and thousands were displaced. About 100 people were killed in Sudan alone and nearly 200 in Kenya. The government of the Sudanese capital Khartoum declared a three-month state of emergency over the weekend. According to the state news agency Suna, at least 100,000 homes, 34 schools and more than 2,500 health centers have been damaged.
The disaster had been approaching for weeks: Heavy rains, especially in neighboring Ethiopia, caused the Nile to rise to more than 17 meters in late August, according to authorities, the highest level in 100 years. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA), potable water is becoming scarce in some areas due to flooding. This is particularly devastating amid the pandemic.
Peak on the Nile, Peak on Lake Victoria
Senegal also started emergency aid over the weekend. Water Minister Serigne Mbaye Thiam said more rain fell last Saturday than would normally fall from the sky in three months of the rainy season. Several children died in the floods. At least one person was reported missing.
The exceptionally heavy rains brought the largest lake in Africa, Lake Victoria, the highest water level since 1964. In the three neighboring countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, many people have to flee from the water bodies: in Kenya , authorities said more than 800,000 people fled their homes. According to experts, heavy rains are the result of climate change on the one hand and coastal erosion due to urbanization and agriculture on the other.
The bodies of water have made many houses uninhabitable, as here, near the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Photo: Marwan Ali / AP
In Niger, the country with the highest birth rate in the world, more than 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture. Heavy rains had caused flash floods across the country since July. In the capital Niamey, a dam on the banks of the Niger River broke on Sunday, prompting various parts of the city to be evacuated.
In Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, around 120,000 people have had to leave their places of origin since August due to floods. In Nigeria, floods destroyed at least two million tonnes of rice, according to the Bloomberg news agency, that’s a quarter of the total harvest.
The United Nations asks for help
The Sahel area of West and Central Africa is particularly affected by the consequences of climate change. Although these states together cause less than three percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by the US alone, temperatures rise one and a half times faster than the global average.
According to its own statements, the United Nations was able to react quickly to the devastating floods and provide many victims with hygiene items and food in emergency shelters. However, as stocks are “running out quickly”, the UN is calling for broader support from the international community.
In late August, the Nile reached its highest level in 100 years.
Photo: Reuters
