Africa under water: Children in 19 countries affected by floods
Half a million children have been affected by widespread flooding across 19 countries in Africa. Torrential rains and floods have swept over east and west Africa in recent weeks, destroying homes and schools and washing away crops and livestock.
Wednesday 19 September 2007
Hundreds have died and hundreds of thousands have been made homeless. Countries as far apart as Senegal on the west coast and Ethiopia in the east have been affected. Roads are flooded or have been swept away and there is a risk of mudslides and landslides making Save the Children's job of reaching affected communities even harder.
One of the biggest risks for children is that the dirty water left by the floods carries diseases like cholera, and a lack of clean water to drink can lead to diarrhoea. The stagnant pools water can become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, increasing the risk of malaria.
Main walkway to the footbridge in Kroo Bay slum, Freetown, Sierra Leone
Amanda Weisbaum, one of Save the Children's Emergency Experts, said: "When towns and villages are flooded it is always the children who are the most vulnerable. Children urgently need medicines, food and clean water, clothes and blankets to keep them warm."
What we are doing
Save the Children is responding to the flooding in five of the affected countries:
West Africa
In Burkina Faso, Save the Children has provided medicines, bed nets to protect children from malaria, food and clothing to families in the district of Fo in the Hauts-Bassins region, in the west of the land-locked country.
In Sierra Leone, people's homes have been inundated with filthy water in the slums in the Kroo Bay area of Freetown, the country's capital. The water, littered with rubbish and human waste, leaves children at risk from disease. Save the Children has been working with volunteers to build sandbag walls and divert water away from homes, and is working to improve sanitation facilities in the communities.
In Nigeria, Save the Children is providing children affected by the flooding with school uniforms and writing materials, and in some cases we're helping to pay school fees.
East Africa
In East Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan have all been badly affected by torrential rains. Save the Children assessment teams have been sent out to affected regions in Uganda and Sudan to find out what children's urgent needs are.
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