The government of Burundi and the UN representative on the ground have launched an appeal for financial aid to deal with the
“devastating effects”
of seasonal rains which, exacerbated by the El Niño climatic phenomenon, have displaced nearly 100,000 people. East Africa has been experiencing torrential rains in recent weeks which caused the death of at least 58 people in Tanzania during the first half of April and 13 others in Kenya.
In Burundi, the poorest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita according to the World Bank and one of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the rains have been almost uninterrupted. since September, instead of the usual two rainy seasons (September-January and March-May).
In total, between September and April 7,
“203,944 people were affected”
by floods, landslides, violent winds and hail, and
“the number of internally displaced people increased by 25% to reach 96,000 people
,” they said. underlined Tuesday in a press release the Minister of the Interior, Martin Niteretse, and the resident coordinator of the United Nations System in Burundi, Violet Kenyana Kakyomya.
Civil society criticism
The press release also reports
“loss of human life”
, without giving an assessment,
“destruction of fields of cultivation, means of subsistence, housing and socio-economic infrastructure”
. While weather forecasts predict
“significantly above normal”
rainfall until May,
“the government and humanitarian actors need financial resources to face the growing challenges in order to avoid a worsening”
of the situation, they call it. In total, 306,000 people are
“in need of humanitarian assistance”
.
The government of President Evariste Ndayishimiye has been facing criticism for several weeks, particularly from civil society and the opposition, who are calling on it to declare a
“state of natural disaster”
or a
“state of emergency”
. In Bujumbura, the economic capital and main city of the country located on the northern shore of Lake Tanganyika, several neighborhoods were flooded, roads and bridges destroyed and some hotels and hospitals abandoned due to rising waters. The waters of the second largest lake in Africa reached 777.04 meters on April 12, 36 cm from the record flood of 1964, the head of Civil Protection, General Anicet Nibaruta, alerted on Friday, quoted by Burundian media. .
El Niño, which began in mid-2023 and could last until May, has regularly had devastating consequences in East Africa. In December, more than 300 people died in various disasters caused by torrential rains. From October 1997 to January 1998, gigantic floods caused more than 6,000 deaths in five countries in the region.