Only $1-million out of a $20-million appeal has come in to help growing numbers of victims of Sudan’s worst floods in living memory, the United Nations said on Monday.
Throughout Sudan, heavy rains have sparked flash floods and rivers have burst their banks, sweeping away tens of thousands of homes, many of which are built beside rivers, the only source of water.
Torrential rains are ravaging about 18 countries from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, with flooding in Ghana and Uganda said to be among the worst.
UN agencies are providing clean water to 2,2-million people in northern Sudan alone, with 500 000 now directly affected by the floods, the UN statement said. At least 131 people have been killed and water-borne diseases such as cholera, which if untreated can kill within 24 hours, have spread.
But the UN statement said just a small fraction of the money needed to help victims of the flooding has been received. ”Only $1-million has since been received from donors, leaving a considerable funding gap of nearly $19-million,” it said, adding that central UN funds had earlier provided $13,5-million to the flood aid effort.
The UN said most of the new damage is located in the state of South Kordofan, in central Sudan, east of South Darfur. ”In the state, at least 15 000 homes were destroyed or damaged, affecting at least 75 000 people, of whom it is estimated some 30 000 are now homeless,” it added. Twenty people had been killed in the state and 13 000 livestock lost.
The Health Ministry in Gedaref, a state in eastern Sudan near the Eritrean border, said in a report obtained by Reuters that 70% of water samples had tested positive for cholera, but the government has officially declined to label the outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea as cholera.
The World Health Organisation had also confirmed it as cholera.
The UN statement said since mid-April at least 68 people had died in the outbreak with 1 323 suspected cases, but added that the preventive provision of clean water had contained this year’s outbreak. Last year, about 25 000 cases of cholera were reported throughout the country, 9 000 in northern Sudan. — Reuters