Thousands of people have been displaced by flooding in Burundi after heavy rains washed out homes near the capital over the weekend, local officials said on Monday.
Officials estimated that at least 7 500 people had been left homeless in suburbs south and west of Bujumbura. ”The damages caused by floods are enormous,” said Gilbert Ntihebuza, administrator of Kanyosha, the worst-affected southern district. ”We counted 2 000 houses destroyed and every house is occupied by at least three persons.”
Ntihebuza said the victims were mainly subsistence farmers, who are now in urgent need of aid such as food and blankets.
A further 1 500 people were displaced by torrential rains in the western district of Gatumba, local administrator Jean Samandari said.
Floods since November last year have devastated crops in parts of the country, whose main export is coffee. Local authorities fear that hunger — already endemic in the poor, war-torn country — could worsen.
President Pierre Nkurunziza has decreed a national tax in solidarity with victims of food shortages, with ministers and MPs giving 8% of four months’ salary while civil servants give 2% from this month.
Scores of people have been killed and thousands displaced by five months of floods throughout East Africa that hit normally drought-prone nations such as Somalia and Ethiopia worst. — Reuters