Heavy rains leave families homeless and in need of aid

Hundreds of families are without assistance in the northwestern province of Cibitoke after heavy rains damaged houses and crops, officials said. 

The administrator of the Mabayi commune in Cibitoke, Jean-Marie Vianney Hategekimana, said exact figures were not available, adding: “We are still assessing the damage and the needs of the population.”

Early in October, residents of the communes of Bukinanyana and Murwi, also in Cibitoke, suffered heavy losses following torrential rains.

Some 200 hundred houses were damaged in Murwi and more than 30 in neighbouring Bukinanayana. The administrator of Bukinanyana, Antoine Girukwishaka, told IRIN the victims sought refuge with their neighbours or built makeshift huts to provide shelter.

Girukwishaka said the plantations of bananas and cassava in some areas were swept away, while a primary school and a technical secondary school were also damaged, prompting education officials to seek shelter in nearby churches.

The governor of Cibitoke, Zéphérin Barutwanayo, said the affected needed tents, blankets, mats and building materials. “They also need food assistance as there will be no harvest at all,” he said.

The head of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Management at the Burundi Red Cross, Vénérand Nzigamasabo, said the organisation was preparing to assist 208 families in Cibitoke.

Nzigamasabo said the regional delegation of the International Federation of  Red Cross and Red Crescent societies based in Nairobi had approved the Disaster Response Emergency Fund, allowing the Burundi Red Cross to assist victims of the rains with non-food items such as plastic tents, cooking kits, blankets, soaps and vegetable seeds.

Similar assistance was given to residents of Nyamurenza last week, who were also victims of heavy rains.

Damage from heavy rains has been reported in several parts of the country since the beginning of the rainy season in mid September. Crops have been destroyed in the provinces of Ngozi (north), Muyinga (north east), and Bujumbura Rural (west).

jb/sr