An estimated 14,500 homes and scores of people have been affected by flooding in Sudan as seasonal rains in the country cause rivers to flood and destroy property.
The spokesperson for Sudan’s National Council for Civil Defence, Brigadier General Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rahim, said on Thursday that the death toll since the rainy season began in May now stands at 77.
The spokesperson stated that the provinces most affected by the seasonal rains include North Kordofan, Gezira, South Kordofan, South Darfur, and River Nile.
Sudan faces severe flooding every year that wrecks property, infrastructure and crops, and heavy rains usually fall in the country between May and October.
According to the government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, humanitarian organizations, and local authorities, more than 136,000 people have been affected by the floods, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported earlier this week.
The number of those affected by flooding is expected to increase as assessments were still underway and heavy rains had been forecast, the UN agency said. Furthermore, the number of people and localities affected by the seasonal rains as of August 14 had “doubled” compared with the same period last year, OCHA added.
According to the UN, about 314,500 people were affected across Sudan during the entire rainy season in 2021.
Flooding and heavy downpours killed more than 80 people and swamped tens of thousands of houses across the country during last year’s rainy season.
After the deluge killed around 100 people and inundated more than 100,000 houses, authorities declared Sudan a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country in 2020.
