KHARTOUM, 23 August 2007 — Some 89 people have died in flooding in Sudan as heavy rains that washed away homes and spread water-borne disease continue to batter the country, a government official said yesterday. Sudanese officials have described this year’s floods as the worst in living memory with unexpectedly early rains destroying more than 70,000 homes.
“Eighty-nine people passed away,” Hamadallah Adam Ali, head of the government Civil Defense Authority, told Reuters yesterday. “Some drowned, some had their houses collapse,” he said, adding some people were electrocuted.
A UN statement said the world body was giving Sudan a grant of $8.7 million for flood relief.
“Amid continued devastation caused by floods in the Sudan ... (the United Nations) has approved a grant of $8.7 million to support the ongoing humanitarian response,” said the statement by the UN’s humanitarian aid agency, OCHA. OCHA said the floods had affected hundreds of thousands of people across a dozen states in Africa’s largest country and many do not have adequate access to food aid.
Heavy flooding in some states has destroyed latrines and polluted water supplies, spreading deadly water-borne diseases like cholera and malaria. A WHO official said the number of cholera cases in east Sudan had risen to 808, including 53 deaths. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and can lead to death within hours if not treated.
“Eight hundred and eight cases and 53 deaths, but since the last three days there have not been any new cases,” Ahmed Al-Ganainy, a WHO official told Reuters. He added the outbreak could not be considered contained until several weeks had passed without new cases.
Meanwhile, a leading Darfur rebel faction said yesterday it was “reassessing” its commitment to an internationally sponsored peace initiative in the light of recent raids by Sudanese government forces. “On Monday night, government of Sudan forces attacked Kalma camp (in South Darfur) with some 35 Land Cruisers and 1,500 troops,” said Nouri Abdalla, a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement faction of Ahmed Abdel Shafi in Nairobi.
“Five people were killed in the raid, two of them were children and around 40 rebels were arrested,” he told AFP by phone from Kampala.
The casualties could not immediately be independently verified. Abdalla charged that Khartoum was flushing out rebels from Darfur’s camps for internally displaced people “in order to block the deployment of the hybrid force.”
Khartoum last month approved a landmark resolution for the deployment of a large peacekeeping force including troops from the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU), to replace an embattled African contingent in Darfur.
