Yaounde, Cameroon — Officials in Chad are asking for international assistance to save thousands of people from persistent flooding, while officials in neighboring Cameroon are seeking help to cope with the opposite problem – severe drought.
Officials say floods for the past three days have forced about 53,000 people to flee several towns and villages in Sila, a southeastern province bordering Sudan and the Central African Republic.
Forty-two-year-old farmer Regine Bumbai said her house was swept away by floods on Tuesday.
She said she is seeking refuge for herself and her three children at the Koukou-Angarana village primary school because heavy rains triggered flooding that is destroying houses and plantations and also displacing animals.
Bumbai told Chadian state TV Wednesday that flood victims are pleading for humanitarian assistance to save the lives of several hundred civilians, most of them children facing hunger and malnutrition.
This week, government officials, the United Nations and humanitarian agencies reported that 14 people had died and more than 245,000 civilians are affected by floods in 13 of Chad’s 23 provinces.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 60,000 structures have been destroyed or damaged.
Chadian state TV has been broadcasting a message in which President Mahamat Idriss Deby calls for solidarity with all flood victims.
In the message Deby said Chad is not the only victim of devastating floods and other shocks caused by severe changes in normal environmental patterns. He said there should be international solidarity in fighting climate shocks that also affect the world’s most powerful nations.
Chad says it is building temporary shelters in several dozen towns and villages including the capital, N’djamena, and providing relief materials for affected families. The families include thousands of civilians fleeing internal armed conflicts and refugees fleeing Boko Haram terrorism and violence in conflict-ridden Sudan.
As Chad steps up efforts to help flood victims, Cameroon is facing a different situation, as rains that were expected in July have yet to come in many regions of the country.
This week, Muslims in Garoua, a northern town near Cameroon’s border with Chad and Nigeria, held public prayers for rain.
Ibrahim El Rachidine, traditional ruler and Muslim spiritual leader of Garoua, organized the prayers.
He said he held the gathering after farmers complained that the lack of rain since July is causing droughts and making crops dry up in plantations. He says he is also calling Cameroonian government officials attention to the looming famine as droughts are already forcing farmers from their land.
Cameroon and Chad said last month the lives of more than 5 million people in the two countries were threatened by a severe humanitarian crisis triggered by the climate shocks and ongoing conflicts.
Officials in both countries have called for international aid, though neither has given much detail on what they need.
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