Help on hand: Blankets, tarpaulins and food have been distributed to flood-affected areas
Waters that will not recede have displaced hundreds of thousands of people – no one knows if they will ever be able to return home
Leizl Eykelhof
ForAfrika has distributed food and non-food items to around 9,766 households (48,830 individuals) who have been affected by severe flooding in South Sudan.
The government of South Sudan announced a state of emergency in flood-hit states in northern parts of the country on October 3.
According to the United Nations, about 890 000 people have been affected and 230,000 have been displaced.
Anger Garang Lual, a mother of three children, has been displaced by the heavy flooding in Auluic village, and is currently living in a tent on a road. Many other roads have been washed away.
“Since June we heard on the local radio that this year’s flooding would be more intense than last year’s flooding. We had doubts because several months went by and there were no signs of floods. Like many in our community, we even went ahead and cultivated sorghum thinking the prediction would not occur,” said Anger.
The floods caught the community unprepared.
“As you can see, the whole village is living by the road side and it is very risky with the children. Motorcycle riders ride so recklessly and we cannot keep eyes on our children all the time. Most times we are looking around for any food supplies and leave the children in the shelters all by themselves.
“So far, we got very little assistance. We are getting desperate by the day. We are appealing to organisations like yours to provide us with tarpaulins sheets, blankets and food.”
In May, the UN predicted that heavy rains around Lake Victoria – which is allowed to overflow into the Nile River – coupled with the El Niño event, would see parts of South Sudan experiencing severe flooding in the coming months.
Flood patterns are changing
South Sudan is prone to annual flooding, usually from July to September, in certain areas and people have adapted their living and farming around this “wet season”. In recent years, however, patterns have changed and flooding has occurred in places where it never used to. Land is still submerged after the worst floods in 60 years struck in 2020. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and their usual agricultural activities have been put on hold indefinitely.
Floods disrupt schooling for children and access to markets and livelihoods activities. Cattle and crops have been lost and people come into conflict over resources.
Floods also put people, especially pregnant and breastfeeding women and children, at risk of water-borne diseases and malaria. Water becomes contaminated quickly in emergency situations as people are forced to huddle together in confined spaces without adequate sanitation.
Over the past three years ForAfrika, with funding from World Food Programme in South Sudan, has worked to secure communities by constructing flood control barriers and road dykes, which protected over 75,000 households.
Hygiene education also becomes of paramount importance and training takes place at schools and in community centres.
Given the scale of flooding in the past three years, it seems that massive floods are a new reality for South Sudan.
Leizl Eykelhof is Communications Manager at ForAfrika
