Heavy rains in Sudan have killed dozens of people, compounding hardship in a country that is already facing multiple crises.
At least 68 people have been killed in as a result of rains that have plagued different parts of the country this year, the interior ministry said.
The downpours, the heaviest recorded since 2019, have affected the western, northern and eastern parts of the country, flooding neighbourhoods and destroying houses, farms and infrastructure. About 27,000 people have been displaced since June as a result of the flooding, according to the United Nations.
In the town of Rokero in the Jebel Marra region of West Darfur state, at least 12 people were killed.
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Abdallah Hussein Adam, a traditional leader in the area, said: “Normally in Jebel Marra, we don’t have floods. It rains a lot but the water passes by. This year it’s different.”
He told the Guardian they had found the bodies of nine people, but three were still missing.
Jebel Marra is a farming region, and Adam said he was worried the flooding would reduce production.
“Last year we didn’t produce much as a result of lacking the rain and [because of] the fighting, but this year we also cannot produce as a result of the floods. It will cause famine; the prices of everything went three times higher.”
Nearly 50,000 families live in Jebel Marra, among them thousands of displaced people who moved from other areas because of fighting that started last year between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and which has had devastating effects.
About 16,000 people have been killed in the civil war, which has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with millions displaced in and outside the country.
International rights groups have accused the warring parties of mass rape and other atrocities.
The conflict has also left half the population in a state of food insecurity and pushed many into starvation. The rains have exacerbated difficulties caused by the fighting in delivering aid.
Early this month, organisations that monitor world hunger declared famine at a displacement camp outside El Fasher, the capital of Darfur.
Othman Belbeisi, the regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Organization for Migration, said the combination of famine, flooding and other challenges had worsened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis to a “catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point”.
“Without an immediate, massive and co-ordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,” he said.
The US is leading a push to end Sudan’s almost 16-month conflict through mediation, but neither warring party has confirmed participation in ceasefire talks scheduled for Wednesday in Switzerland. – Guardian