MAKAYLAB, Sudan — In the Sudanese village of
Makaylab, Mohamed Tigani picked through the pile of rubble that was once his
mud-brick home, after torrential rains sparked heavy floods that swept it away.
اضافة اعلان
“It was like doomsday,” said Tigani, 53, from
Makaylab in
Sudan’s River Nile state, some 400km north of the capital Khartoum.
“We have not seen rains and floods like that in this
area for years,” he said, scouring for anything to help build a shelter for his
pregnant wife and child.
In Sudan, heavy rains usually fall between May and
October, and the country faces severe flooding every year, wrecking property,
infrastructure and crops.
This year, floods
have killed at least 79 people and left thousands homeless, according to
official figures.
On Sunday, Sudan declared a state of emergency due to
floods in six states, including River Nile.
The crisis comes as Sudan reels from deepening
political unrest and a spiralling economic crisis exacerbated by last year’s
military coup led by army chief
Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.
Almost a quarter of Sudan’s population — 11.7
million people — need food aid.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), citing government figures, estimates over 146,000 people have
been affected by flooding this year, with 31,500 homes damaged or destroyed.
But the UN warns that with more than a month of rain
still expected, flooding could affect up to 460,000 people this year — far
higher than the average 388,600 people affected between 2017 and 2021.
“Compared to the same period of 2021, the number of
affected people and localities this year has doubled,” OCHA said Monday.
The flooding is not just along the Nile River, with
the war-ravaged western region of Darfur the hardest hit, where over 90,000
people are affected.
‘Only just starting’
Since the start of the devastating rainy season, thousands of Sudanese
families have been left homeless, sheltering under tattered sacking.
“Everything is
totally destroyed,” said Haidar Abdelrahman, sitting in the ruins of his home
at Makaylab.
OCHA warns that
“swollen rivers and pools of standing water increase the risk of water-borne
disease such as cholera, acute watery diarrhoea, and malaria”.
Abdelrahman said he
fears the floodwaters have also forced scorpions and snakes to move. “People
are scared,” he said.
“People are in
serious need of basic aid against insects and mosquitoes,” said Seifeddine
Soliman, 62, from Makaylab.
But health ministry
official Yasser Hashem said the situation is “so far under control” with
“spraying campaigns to prevent mosquitoes”.
Out of around 3,000
residents in Makaylab, they had been receiving about six or seven cases daily,
mainly diarrhea, he said.
Upstream, on the
White Nile, neighboring South Sudan has seen record rainfalls and overflowing
rivers in recent years, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their
homes, with the UN saying the “extraordinary flooding” was linked to the
effects of climate change.
The floods on the
Nile in Sudan also come despite Ethiopia’s controversial construction upstream
across the Blue Nile of a 145m tall hydroelectric dam.
Some experts, such
as the US-based research and campaign group International Rivers, have warned
that changing weather patterns due to climate change could result in irregular
episodes of flooding and drought in the Nile drainage basin, the world’s
longest river.
In Makaylab, many
fear the devastating floods are only the beginning.
“The rainy season
is just starting,” said Abdelrahman. “And there is no place for people to go.”
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