18. African Flood Crisis

Several of Africa's poorest countries are in dire need of assistance due to severe floods that have killed more than 200 people and affected a million in recent weeks, officials warned.

The latest victims were reported in Rwanda, where officials from the northern region said floods killed 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes since Wednesday.

In Sudan, the worst floods in living memory have left 64 people dead and displaced and affected several hundred thousand, mainly in the troubled south, according to the United Nations.

A cholera epidemic spread by floods has also killed at least 49 Sudanese in recent weeks, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"The response is still ongoing. Most of the 200,000 plus people who were homeless at the end of August have by now been given shelter," Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

In neighbouring Uganda, the minister in charge of refugees and disaster preparedness said that 300,000 people were in need of humanitarian assistance.

"The situation borders a crisis," Musa Ecweru said. He said nine Ugandans had died as a result of the floods, which he described as "a new phenomenon that we have not experienced for many years."

Kenya has also suffered from the downpours, a year after unprecedented floods displaced 700,000 people.

"We have activated our disaster response and the Government and aid groups are providing food, shelter and medicine to those affected by the floods," government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

The UN's food agency (WFP) and the Ethiopian authorities announced Friday they had launched a programme of food assistance targeting some 60,000 people among the most affected by the floods across the country.

"An estimated 183,000 people have been affected by floods this year... 42,000 of which were displaced and are in temporary shelters," Ethiopia's WFP spokeswoman Paulette Jones said.

"The figures are only estimated, they could rise once an assessment team concludes its study,"
she said.

Western and central Africa were not spared, as floods there have affected at least 500,000 people, according to the UN.

At least 33 people have died in Burkina Faso, 20 in Togo and six in Ghana, according to figures released by the UN humanitarian affairs office in Geneva.

Torrential rains and floods have also taken a heavy toll on Nigeria, where 41 people have died in northern and central regions.

In Togo, non-stop rain over several days has washed away or damaged 22,000 hut homes, more than 100 bridges and 58 schools and colleges, along with 1,500 hectares of food crops and has left 34,000 people homeless - AFP.