Floods affect 600,000 people across West Africa |
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8 September 2009 – The number of people hit by deadly floods across West Africa has now topped 600,000, and the heavy rains have also destroyed crops and infrastructure in a region already hard hit by poverty, the United Nations humanitarian arm reported today.
The rains that began in June have claimed nearly 160 lives, with Sierra Leone, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger among the countries most affected by flooding, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Roads and buildings have been ruined from Mauritania to Niger, while a key hospital in Ouagadougou, the capital, of Burkina Faso, lost medicine and equipment. In the town of Agadez in Niger, almost 400 hectares of vegetable crops and hundreds of livestock were washed away.
“It’s a very worrisome situation that further weakens already impoverished populations,” said Hervé Ludovic de Lys, head of the OCHA in West Africa.
“Natural disasters have lasting consequences that will have an impact for decades to come and take us back to square one in terms of the fight against poverty.”
The OCHA noted today that climate change is driving these natural disasters, with the region possibly paying a high human cost due to global warming. Ahead of December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, when nations are aiming to reach agreement on slashing greenhouse gas emissions, West African nations have been holding frequent high-level and expert meetings on the issue.
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 Source: UN News Center
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page last updated on 14.09.2009
