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FROM THE FIELD

Sudan: Red Crescent volunteers brave the floods

03 Aug 2007 10:35:00 GMT
Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) - Switzerland
By Anita Swarup in Nairobi

Website: Website: http://www.ifrc.org

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All is gone except what this boy and his family, assisted by Red Crescent volunteers, managed to pull out of the house before it collapsed. (p16061)
(Sudanese Red Crescent/Sharf Eddin Ali Ahmad)

Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers continue assisting people who have become displaced or injured during the floods in Sudan even though many had themselves lost their own homes. Hasseen Adam, President of the Public Committee in a village in the Maragani Unit in Al Jazeera state, where the Red Crescent is the only humanitarian organization working, comments: "The Red Crescent is part of our community and is doing a very good job."

Flash floods destroyed several parts of his village, about 3 hours south of the capital Khartoum. Nearly 160 houses in the village had collapsed or partially collapsed and 89 families affected.

"The rain started at 2.00 am. I was called at seven am and when I arrived the whole Red Crescent volunteer force were already here...though their homes had also been partially flooded," says El Gazave Salih Hussein, the Red Crescent Unit supervisor of Maragani unit.

Luckily El Gazave's house was on higher ground but others were not so lucky. Tagwa Babcker Mohammed, a 16-year old student, saw her home collapse in the middle of the night. Terrified, she still managed to volunteer with the Red Crescent team and help her own. "When the rain first started, the water attacked us in our houses but I didn't think my house would collapse. Then people got out and the house collapsed. I was crying...everyone was crying."

Tagwa's school also collapsed leaving only two classrooms standing. The students now have to take their classes outdoors under a tree - but when it rains they have to abandon the class so their education is being seriously affected.

Despite waist-high water in many parts, there were some 30 Red Crescent volunteers assisting that night, some whose own houses had collapsed. But they bravely continued, assisting people who needed to be evacuated and took them to shelters and schools. They also tried to save any personal belongings they could - books, kitchen utensils, furniture etc. And a rapid assessment (and head count) was done at the time.

Some 51 tents and 212 blankets were distributed to the affected families in the village. Like many other families, Tagwa and her family are now living in a tent, which the Red Crescent volunteers helped to put up, and they are now awaiting news of a transfer to an area less prone to flooding. Several families will be moving out. Others will have to find the means to rebuild the houses - although many are too poor to do so.

"We have nothing now, nothing," says a woman who saw three of her extended family's homes break down into a pile of mud bricks. "Where are we going to live? We cannot live in this tent for very long."

Food distribution was another aspect of the volunteers' work. Ibrahim Adam, another volunteer says, "During the floods, we provided immediate relief, we served cooked breakfasts, bread and sweets which came from the local authorities."

For the moment, the most pressing concerns are health and hygiene. Latrines have been washed away and people now have to defecate in the open. Health education, with regard to diarrhoea, AWD and other diseases, is the main activity for the volunteers now. "The main worry is that health will not be under control - especially with no latrines. So hygiene promotion sessions are very important," says state branch secretary Osama Osman, as he walks around the village with local health volunteers and Nathan Cooper of the Federation's international FACT team.

Ashruf Abudulhaf, a local village resident, says, "People are very worried here, you can see it in their faces. Our Sudan rain is one of God's gifts but now people are asking God not to send more rain - because there is nothing to save them. Not even the tents."

The fear now is not only more rain but also that the nearby river, the Blue Nile, could burst its banks flooding surrounding areas. According to El Gazave, "several volunteers have been placed along the river, monitoring its levels."

Indeed all local volunteers are currently on stand-by as more rain and floods are expected - it is still early in the rainy season and they are expecting more floods in the next few weeks.

Aisha Gaigar, the Sudanese Red Crescent's Relief Co-ordinator, says: "Branch co-operation is very good, we've called volunteers from branches in non-affected areas and they are helping out. Collaboration with the ICRC and the International Federation has been good, too. The disaster management people from the International Federation have been assisting us and now the Field assessment and coordination team (FACT) is in place, so we are hopeful that things will start moving faster."

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched an emergency appeal for US$ 1.65 million to support the Sudanese Red Crescent Society's operation. It should be revised upwards in the coming days.

[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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Last updated:Fri Aug 3 10:41:01 2007