Hundreds of Thousands Displaced By West African Flood

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso – After three months of rain West Africa has been devastated by flooding that displaced 600,000.  The current season has been unusually rainy and the rain is expected to last through the end of the month.

People from Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal, and Niger have all been affected by the floods.  According to meteorologists, nearly one quarter of Burkina Faso’s yearly rainfall fell in a twelve-hour span.

According to the latest report from the United Nations, more than 150 people have been killed.  Many of those lives were claimed in Sierra Leone.

Half of the capital city of Ouagadougou has been affected including the part that housed the university hospital.  More than 150,000 from Burkina Faso are homeless, living in community centers and schools so overcrowded that some sleep outside.  These men spend the night exposed to malarial mosquitoes that breed in the standing water.

“The [university] hospital was one of the main hospitals in Ouagadougou where thousands of people were treated each day,” said West Africa spokesman for the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Yvon Edoumou.  “So clearly that is a major concern for us.  If you think in terms of just basic health services or even more acute health conditions, there is a fear that people who were there at the time of the flooding ate not getting the treatment that they should be.”

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) began feeding the displaced on Tuesday, feeding tens of thousands.  The goal is to feed 177,500 people, mainly from Ouagadougou.  According to the WFP this is the worst flooding in Burkina Faso in 90 years.

“It is always the poor and vulnerable who suffer the most from floods like these as their few remaining assets are swept away, leaving them hungry and destitute,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

OCHA issued a statement calling the situation “very worrying.”

This is, however, a mixed blessing.  The countries that are dependent on agriculture will have more plentiful harvests because of the wet season.

For more information, please see:

AP – UN Distributes Food to West Africa Flood Victims – 08 September 2009

CNN – West Africa Flooding Affects 600,000, U.N. Reports – 08 September 2009

Reuters – Catholic Relief Services to Assist Flood Victims in Burkina Faso – 08 September 2009

VOA – Flooding Displaces Hundreds of Thousands in West Africa – 08 September 2009

IRIN – Floods Shut Down Hospital, HIV Reference Lab – 07 September 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive