9/21/2021- 3:39 p.m.
Heavy flooding has affected and displaced about 426,000 people in South Sudan, including 185,000 children, as overflowing rivers deluged homes and farms in the impoverished country, the UN’s emergency-response agency said on Tuesday.
Emergency workers have used canoes and boats to reach people cut off by the deluge, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a briefing note, warning that more heavy rains and flooding were expected in the coming months.
The downpours “have exacerbated the vulnerability of communities, with many people displaced by the floods seeking refuge in churches and schools”, the agency said.
In Bentiu, the capital of Unity state, which is home to about a third of the flood-hit population, desperate farmers begged for help, as rising waters triggered by early seasonal rainfall submerged their houses and their land.
“Even the animals are being affected. All the places we use to graze them in are all flooded with water,” farmer Gatjiath Pal told AFP.
“Everywhere is water… and we don’t know when this will end because it is raining every day here,” he said.
Other villagers said they were frightened of being bitten by snakes as the deluge prompts the reptiles to seek shelter inside buildings.
