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West and Central Africa: From worst food crisis to severe flooding

By on October 21, 2010

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Floods in West and Central Africa have killed at least 377 deaths and affected nearly 1.5 million people since the beginning of the rainy season in June 2010, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). 2010 saw the largest number of people affected and deaths due to floods, bringing more misery to communities already suffering their worst food crisis in decades, mainly across the Sahel.

Now, torrential rains have struck communities across Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without food and shelter. Countries with the most deaths were Nigeria (118), Ghana (52), Sudan (50), Benin (43), Chad (24), Mauritania (21), Burkina Faso (16), Cameroon (13) and Gambia (12), other countries with fewer than 10 deaths. The countries with the most affected people are Benin (360 000), followed by Nigeria (300 000), Niger (226 611), Chad (150 000), Burkina Faso (105 481), Sudan (74 970) and Mauritania (50 815), other countries with less than 50 000 people affected. Fields remain inundated with water containing the bodies of drowned livestock and as a result, villagers already weakened through lack of food are now at risk of diseases such as malaria and cholera. That was the case in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad where rains prompted an outbreak of cholera, aggravating the situation in Niger and Chad, a country already facing serious food crisis. In addition, these series of natural catastrophes and bad weather have disrupted the start of the school year in several countries and led to losses in terms of socio-economic, housing and agricultural crops. In 2009, floods have killed 195 people in West Africa and have affected 823 291 people.

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