OVER 1,000,000 AFFECTED BY AFRICAN FLOODS
SEPT 14 2007
Several of Africa's poorest countries are in dire need of
assistance due to severe floods that have killed more than 200 people and
affected a million in recent weeks, officials
warned Friday.
The latest victims were reported in Rwanda, where officials from the northern
region said floods killed 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes since
Wednesday.
In Sudan, the worst floods in living memory have left 64 people dead and
displaced and affected several hundred thousand, mainly in the troubled south,
according to the United Nations.
A cholera epidemic spread by floods has also killed at least 49 Sudanese in
recent weeks, according to the World Health Organisation.
"The response is still ongoing... Most of the 200,000 plus people who were
homeless at the end of August have by now been given shelter," Maurizio
Giuliano, spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), told AFP.
In neighbouring Uganda, the minister in charge of refugees and disaster
preparedness said that 300,000 people were in need of humanitarian assistance.
"The situation borders a crisis," Musa Ecweru told reporters. He said nine
Ugandans had died as a result of the floods, which he described as "a new
phenomenon that we have not experienced for many years."
Kenya has also suffered from the downpours, a year after unprecedented floods
displaced 700,000 people.
"We have activated our disaster response and the government and aid groups are
providing food, shelter and medicine to those affected by the floods,"
government spokesman Alfred Mutua told AFP.
At least a dozen people have died in recent weeks as a result of the flooding
in the east African nation.
The UN's food agency (WFP) and the Ethiopian authorities announced Friday they
had launched a programme of food assistance targeting some 60,000 people among
the most affected by the floods across the country.
"An estimated 183,000 people have been affected by floods this year... 42,000
of which were displaced and are in temporary shelters," Ethiopia's WFP
spokeswoman Paulette Jones told AFP.
"The figures are only estimated, they could rise once an assessment team
concludes its study," she said.
"To date, the death toll from the flooding has reached 17 people, while some
4,000 head of livestock have been drowned or washed away, and 34,000 hectares
of land has been damaged," a WFP statement also said.
Western and central Africa were not spared, as floods there have affected at
least 500,000 people, according to the UN.
At least 33 people have died in Burkina Faso, 20 in Togo and six in Ghana,
according to figures released by the UN humanitarian affairs office in Geneva
on Friday.
The victims, who are already among the most malnourished people on the planet,
are in dire need of tents, supplies, drinking water, medicine, mosquito nets,
fuel and matches, OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters.
Torrential rains and floods have also taken a heavy toll on Nigeria, where 41
people have died in northern and central regions.
In Togo, non-stop rain over several days has washed away or damaged 22,000 hut
homes, more than 100 bridges and 58 schools and colleges, along with 1,500
hectares (3,750 acres) of food crops and has left 34,000 people homeless.
The government has declared three days of national mourning for the victims
and on Friday postponed the start of the school year, which was supposed to
have started on September 17, by one month.
Last week, officials in Niger said around a dozen people had died in the
country and more than 6,000 others had been affected by the heavy rains since
July, and according Byrs one person has also been killed in Liberia.
Meteorologists in the Sahel countries that are better known for their
punishing droughts have recorded virtually unprecedented rainfalls and
predicted fresh downpours for September 18.
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