Flooding affects more than 1 million across East Africa

 

Flooding has affected well over a million people across East Africa, another calamity threatening food security on top of a historic locust outbreak and the coronavirus pandemic.
The Nile River has hit its highest levels in a half-century under heavy seasonal rainfall, and large parts of Sudan, Ethiopia and South Sudan have been swamped amid worries about climate change.

As warnings of a new famine grow in South Sudan, the United Nations says flooding there has affected at least a half-million people, many in areas of Jonglei state that saw eruptions of deadly intercommunal violence this year.

People who fled the fighting now cling to precarious positions, some piling mud barriers around their homes. "They are exposed to malaria, waterborne diseases and snakebites as floodwaters overwhelm their homes and farms," the medical charity Doctors Without Borders says.

"People are really very frustrated," local activist David Garang Goch told the UN. peacekeeping mission in Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, as video posted by the mission showed people carrying belongings through sometimes knee-deep water or piling sandbags around businesses.

The flooding further complicates efforts to deliver humanitarian aid in a country where more than half the population - or over 6 million people - is said to be hungry. AP/ dailystar.com.lb