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Darfur, Sudan: Severe floods hit town of Kubum
Photo: cws
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By Charlotte Brudenell, ACT-Caritas in Darfur
Kubum, western South Darfur--As residents of Kubum started their day's work on the morning of August 10, water started flowing into the town and the villages of Falanduge and Nyilela. Roads were turned into streams, gardens into swamps, and houses into basins of water.
One death from drowning was reported -- a young boy who was on his way to the mill with his younger siste, who slid into a hole which was covered by water and sank.
"In some places the water level rose to 1.5 meters. This caused a lot of houses to collapse, especially those with mud walls," reported Simon Peter Odong, acting field coordinator for the ACT-Caritas operation in Kubum.
"Granaries also collapsed, and the cereals were washed out by the running water. Fields have become water-logged and the crops destroyed," explained Odong. "In addition, open, hand-dug wells filled with flood water, contaminating them, and rendering them unfit for human consumption."
The flood also caused landslides, caused two wells to collapse, and left depressions filled with flood water. These pools of dirty, stagnant water have now become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
In the past week, cases of diarrhea and malaria have increased dramatically (by more than 60 percent), and there has been a rise in water-related diseases such as worms and skin infections, mostly in children.
Kubum town sits on low ground on the lower side of a wadi (a seasonal river). Heavy rains upstream can cause the wadi to burst its banks and flood the town. Although susceptible to yearly flooding, the recent flooding was the worst in many years.
Despite attempts by the government to move the town to the higher bank, residents have been reluctant to move for a number of reasons, the most significant being a lack of water in the alternate location. The new site is on high ground and thus has very low potential for traditional hand-dug wells, the main water source for the area.
With hand-dug wells contaminated by flood waters in the town, ACT-Caritas's hygiene-promotion team in Kubum is encouraging people to abandon the wells until they are clean and disinfected after the rains and to use the hand pumps instead.
ACT-Caritas supports all three of the health facilities in Kubum and responded to the initial emergency by sending essential drugs to treat diarrhea. ACT-Caritas has also distributed plastic sheets to people who have tried to rebuild their huts as there is a shortage of building materials locally.
Because the rainy season will last another month, it is likely that there will be more flooding. Odong, an experienced environmental health advisor, put forward some solutions: "The short-term plan would be to build sand embankments to prevent the wadi from bursting again, and dig diversion channels around homes. But this is not what is being done. People are primarily concentrating on rebuilding the collapsed huts and adding more soil around the brick-wall houses."
The long-term solution is to try to move the town to the new location, but people will not be able to bake bricks and build until after the rains. Last year, ACT-Caritas put forward a proposal to construct a water supply for a small town, which encouraged some people to move, but the project was later dropped due to funding constraints.
ACT-Caritas is the sole humanitarian-aid agency working in Kubum. It supports people living in camps for the internally displaced as well as the host community where some IDP families have been integrated by providing water and sanitation facilities, primary health care, peace-building and psycho-social services as well as education and agricultural inputs.
Out of the total population of 41,000, 4,000 have been affected by the flood. However, the IDP (internally displaced persons) camp located on the other side of the wadi and has not been affected.
ACT International is a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide.
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations present in 200 countries and territories
*Church World Service, as part of the Action by Churches Together, ACT, coalition, is helping to meeting the humanitarian needs of families and communities uprooted by the violence in Darfur. In partnership, CWS is helping to provide food, medicines, water and sanitation, agricultural inputs and tools, as well as a supplemental feeding program for malnourished children.
Contributions to CWS Sudan-Darfur emergency efforts may be made online, by phone to 800-297-1516 ext. 222, or mailed to CWS, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515. Thank you.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;
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