80 endure chilly night as floods wash away homes

Moyo

Families in Obongi County, Moyo District, spent Saturday night out in the chilly weather and had to rely on Good Samaritans to shelter their children after heavy downpour left more than 80 people homeless.

The rain that caused flooding also destroyed more than 53 huts and 18 pit-latrines in the county. The flooding of the River Nile was triggered by heavy rain that lasted more than three hours. No deaths were reported.

Mr Toha Amaku, whose family is now living under a tree, is worried that communicable disease could soon crop in due to poor sanitation. “The level of hygiene has gone down. We have no pit-latrine and this exposes us to cholera. But we urgently need temporary shelter and food,” he said.

Did warning register?
The area LC1 chairman, Mr Sebbi Idraku, said most of the affected residents are the war victims of the Miji rebellion of 1996. “They have deliberately refused to vacate the river bank, which is prone to frequent flooding, despite our advice. But now most of them lack shelter and even food because theirs were swept away,” he said.

The LC3 chairman of Gimara Sub-county, Mr Ibrahim Fadul Rashid, appealed to the district disaster management committee to urgently rescue the affected family members. Moyo is among the districts where the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness has warned of imminent flooding as the rains take its toll.

But the warnings seemed not to have reached the vulnerable population in time or they just had no alternative settlement as they claimed. Last week, more than 20 hectares of food crops were destroyed by floods in Lefori Sub-county. Livestock was also washed away in the flood.