Uganda-South Sudan border market floods

07, August 2013(Kampala) – A key market on the Uganda side of the border with South Sudan was on Tuesday night flooded after a heavy downpour made the nearby Unyama river to burst its banks flooding the market including the road that links Uganda to South Sudan.

Elego market located about 70 kms east of the northern Uganda town of Gulu was set up at the Bibia-Nimule border. It is an important market for both Uganda and South Sudan. For Uganda it’s an opportunity to serve the South Sudan market. For South Sudan, it’s an opportunity to buy goods that may be inadequate or unavailable in South Sudan.

By Wednesday afternoon the strategic road that links the two countries was flooded with only bigger vehicles capable of wading through the water.

Traders were also stranded as their shops and stalls were still filled with water.

‘‘The whole place has been flooded. People are stranded and have nowhere to go,’’ Patrick Okema, a Spokesperson for the Ugandan police in northern Uganda told the Sudan Tribune by phone.

On Wednesday a team of Uganda government officials and the Uganda Red Cross travelled to the border market to assess the situation.

No one died in the floods but a woman was injured after a tree she climbed to avoid the floods was swept by gushing flood water.

Uganda’s Minister of Disaster Preparedness, Musa Ecweru put the number of those affected by the floods at 1,000.

(ST)