Over 900,000 people hit by floods in South Sudan: OCHA

October 16, 2022 (JUBA)  – At least 909,000 people have been affected by persistent floods in various parts of South Sudan, recent estimates from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows.

“These floods have killed livestock and destroyed crops, washed away roads and bridges, destroyed homes, schools and health facilities, and submerged boreholes and latrines, contaminating springs and posing risks of waterborne diseases,” OCHA noted last week.

In Unity State, for instance, rising water levels has reportedly threatened two camps for the displaced people and a UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) base with flooding.

Torrential rains in Western Bahr el-Ghazal state caused the collapse of a key bridge, cutting off delivery of emergency aid to already hard-pressed populations, OCHA said.

Last month’s estimates from OCHA indicated that 386,000 people had been affected by flooding across seven states of South Sudan.

According to experts, floods have worsened over the past years as South Sudan is suffering increasingly from the consequences of climate change.

(ST)