The European Union (EU) last week announced $4.8 million to five African flood-affected countries, causing displacement and wreaking havoc with hundreds of thousands impacted.
These include South Sudan, Somalia. Ethiopia, Uganda as well as Sudan, the hardest-hit country this year with at least 550 000 people displaced in its 17 out of 18 states.
In South Sudan, at least 600 000 populations have been displaced in Jonglei while thousands others affected in Lakes and parts of Western Equatoria States who are in dire need of humanitarian assistance such as shelter, food and medicine, most of whom women, children and elderly people.
The $4.8 million will be shared among the five countries with Sudan receiving 1 million, South Sudan $1.4 million, $900, 000 for Ethiopia, $700, 000 for Somalia and Uganda getting $100,000.
The funding will be delivered through humanitarian organizations serving in the affected countries to provide the most pressing needs, including emergency shelter as well as cash assistance to hundreds of thousands population impacted by the floods.
In the press release last week, Janez Lenarčičs, European Union Commissioner for Crisis Management said the funding was a part of the European Union’s solidarity with the people of Africa in a bid to “end their suffering”.
“The EU stands in solidarity with the affected people in South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda. It is evident that the frequency and severity of natural disasters including flooding in this region had worsened due to climate change,”. Said Lenarčičs.
“This only exacerbated an already dire situation for the hundreds of thousands of already vulnerable and food insecure people, our emergency assistance will bring basic and life-saving supplies to them,” she added.
In Ethiopia, the flood is said to have affected at least 600,000, displacing 340,000 populations in six of the ten states of the country resulting from a combination of exceptional rainfall in the Ethiopian highland and discharge of filled dam since July this year.
While in Somalia, about 287 000 people are said to have so far been displaced by recurring flooding including in the northern town of Beledweyne along Shabelle river, according to a press release.
And in Uganda, along its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 10, 000 people are said to have been displaced by floods resulting from the excessive rainfall adding layers to the unrecovered impact of this years’ earlier floods.