UGANDA: The battle of the floods

AMASERNIKO

Francis Egoliam believed the downpour was a one-off in this north-eastern region of Uganda that is usually very dry. But then waves of water started swirling through his homestead and the houses of unbaked mud bricks started melting, leaving his family homeless and hungry.
 
“We all thought it was going to be short-lived but we realised it had become a daily phenomenon and the floods started. Our crops have been destroyed by the water and houses have collapsed,” says Egoliam of his village’s ordeal at Amaseniko camp in Amuria district.
  
Local leaders said that up to 147 houses had collapsed in the camp while most of the latrines were overflowing. “But the main problem is that our children are not attending classes,” Egoliam said, because the school block has become a haven for 500 people displaced by the floods.
  
The residents had returned to the gardens to retrieve whatever food remained. “But all we get is a rotten harvest. Groundnuts, cassava tubers and sweet potatoes have all rotted,” said mother of eight, Margaret Akol, 36.
 
Some people braved the pools of water to cross to drier areas where government and relief agency officials are trying to assess the situation.
  
“The waves took my bicycle when I tried to cross a flooded area from Tukumu [a village some distance from Amaseniko] to go to school 22km away. Now I cannot go to school because it is a long distance. We are completely cut off. It is like we are in a cell,” said 17-year-old Henry Epau, a student of St Francis Secondary School.

Malaria on the rise
 
Water and sanitation facilities have been severely damaged, and with many latrines collapsing, there are fears of disease as mini-lagoons separate houses in the camp.
 
Florence Asege, the local nurse at a government health centre 5km away, told reporters that incidences of malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections were on the increase. “We need more drugs, but we are cut off. We are only eight at the centre, but we have now to attend to up to 76 patients a day and 60 of these are malaria and acute cough cases,” she said.
  
“The general situation is very bad and rough. Two days ago we lost two children who drowned. We sleep in very appalling conditions because we fear the houses collapsing on us because many of them have collapsed,” Robert Osujo, the Amaseniko camp leader, said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has launched an appeal for US$43 million in emergency assistance for the flood-affected Ugandans.
 
Officially, up to 18 people have died since the floods started, but local leaders put the figure higher at 45, though government representatives would not be drawn on the discrepancy.

Emergency measures
 
Most bridges in the area have been washed away and Musa Ecweru, the minister in charge of disaster preparedness, relief and refugees, who has been coordinating the humanitarian response in the region, said on 24 September that Katakwi district, for example, had been completely cut off and could only be accessed by air.
 
He said a dry spell that lasted three days was broken on 23 September as rains resumed for 24 hours. "We now need to rely on air transport to deliver food items to the districts, but we are just praying that it stops raining," Ecweru said by phone from Soroti.
 
The crisis prompted the government last week to declare a state of emergency in affected areas of the east, the first time President Yoweri Museveni has resorted to such a measure in his 21-year tenure. Forecasts predict more rain in many parts of Africa over the coming days.