Record floods hamper relief efforts as downpours continue across Africa

HUNDREDS of thousands of people were desperate for food and shelter across Africa yesterday, as record floods and fresh downpours hampered relief efforts.

The continent’s worst floods in three decades have deprived some 1.5 million people of their homes and subsistence in 18 countries and killed close to 300.

In Uganda, one of Africa’s worst-hit countries, authorities said that renewed rainfall in north-eastern regions was complicating efforts to deliver aid to flood-affected areas.

“The short, dry period we experienced for three days was broken yesterday and it has been raining for the past 24 hours, making all roads inaccessible,” said State Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru.

“If the rains continue for the next four days, we do not know what will happen. The routes have been destroyed,” he said by phone from Soroti, the north-eastern town where much of the relief effort is being co-ordinated. About 500,000 people are affected in Uganda. Neighbouring regions in southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya have also been hit, where dozens have died.

Forecasts predict more rain in many parts of Africa over the coming days. West Africa has also seen its worst floods in decades, with countries such as Ghana, Togo and Nigeria paying a heavy human and economic toll.

With displaced people dying of water-borne diseases and electrocution in remote areas, casualty tolls are still being compiled across the continent. Mali, a west African nation more often plagued by droughts, said on Saturday that unprecedented rainfall had killed nine people and left more than 40,000 homeless since July.

Northern countries were not spared, with 13 people killed in Algeria, including 10 in flash floods on Friday south-east of Algiers.

Aid organisations have warned that beyond the immediate needs of those displaced by the floods, destroyed crops could lead to a major food shortage in several parts of the continent.