Floods wreck homes and harvests in arid north

Mud and thatch houses and crops planted by some of the poorest farming communities in northern Burkina Faso have been washed away by heavy rainfall and flooding that has left thousands homeless. In Gorom-Gorom, 270 km north of the capital Ouagadougou and close to the Niger and Mali border, the homes of 6,000 people have disintegrated in lashing rain, forcing occupants to take shelter in cement-built schools and town halls. “It was just frightening what I saw. While people were searching for what they could save among their belongings, houses were crumbling down,” said Boukary Coguyam, head of the Welfare and National Solidarity Ministry at Gorom-Gorom. The Minister of Welfare and National Solidarity, Pascaline Tamini, flew to the area in a helicopter to offer residents support. But trucks carrying emergency supplies of food and blankets sent by the government from Ouagadougou have been unable to drive into the town, which has been cut off by the floods. Some desperate residents have swum through the floodwaters to retrieve aid parcels. Northern Burkina Faso lies in the middle of the usually dry Sahel band that sweeps across Africa along the southern fringes of the Sahara desert. The region’s usually arid climate has exacerbated the worst effects of the heavy rains as baked soil is slow to absorb water, leading to flooding. Local authorities in Gorom-Gorom are concerned for the welfare of up to 4,000 more residents of 15 villages north of the town, which were cut off after the main Touro dam, some 7 km north of Gorom-Gorom, collapsed washing the main road away. Even if the rain stops completely, it will take some time for the floodwaters to dissipate in Burkina Faso, and local authorities, fearful of an outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, have launched an information campaign to instruct people not to drink floodwater. Local government official Coguyam said residents were fortunate that the flooding had occurred during daylight hours and so were not asleep in their homes when they collapsed. At least two people died in torrential rains in the north of neighbouring Niger last week, while flash floods in Ethiopia, which lies in the far east of the Sahel region, have claimed more than 200 lives. Years of recurrent drought and a 2004 locust invasion contributed to food shortages across the Sahel last year. However, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) latest report on the Sahel weather and crop situation said that growing conditions across the region had, in general, improved with rains in July. Nonetheless, the FAO report warned of pockets of low rainfall especially in southern Niger, which was hardest hit in the 2004/5 crisis. And nearly mid-way into this year’s rainy season, crop prospects remained uncertain. Local authorities reckon the floods will have wiped out harvests affecting thousands of farmers in and around Gorom-Gorom. “We had started to recover from the 2004 catastrophe,” said Coguyam, “but these floods are putting all our efforts and hope in jeopardy.” bo/ss/ccr