Cholera hits IDPs after heavy rains

Three people have died of cholera and 12 others are infected in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) following heavy rains in Burundi's troubled western province of Bujumbura Rural, an official said on Monday. "Two other people are admitted to a health unit near the camp for the displaced," Felix Ntahombaye, the administrator of Kabezi Commune, told IRIN. The camp is in a communal centre in Kabezi, 20 km south of the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. Heavy rains during the last three weeks pounded the Kabezi camp, home to some 30,000 IDPs. The outbreak of cholera has been attributed to poor drainage and sanitation in the camp. Ntahombaye said cholera could also have broken out because of poor hygiene and a shortage of clean water in the IDP site. He said the International Rescue Committee had started to provide clean water to the IDPs in an effort to curb the disease. The heavy rains have also destroyed the IDPs’ homes, most of which are wooden structures covered with banana leaves. Some of the structures are now leaking and flooding the floors the IDPs sleep on. "Huge drops of rain water fall on us when we are sleeping," a woman at the site told IRIN. "We are obliged to seek shelter outside more solid houses nearby." Crops that the IDPs had planted have also been battered by the rains, most of which are now damaged and partly looted by the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) rebels, loyal to Agathon Rwasa. The province of Bujumbura Rural is a stronghold of Rwasa’s FNL, the only group that is still fighting government forces. Other former rebel groups in the country have signed ceasefire agreements with Burundi’s transitional government and have since joined the government’s side. The IDPs also complained of hunger, saying they have received relief food only twice in the four months they have been at the camp. Additionally, the rains have also disrupted school for IDP children.