After the “doomsday” floods, the Sudanese fear worse

In the Sudanese village of Makaylab, Mohamed Tigani was digging through the rubble heap that was his adobe home after torrential rains triggered severe flooding that swept it away.

“It was like the end of the world,” said Tigani, 53, from Makaylab in Sudan’s Nile State, about 400 kilometers north of the capital Khartoum.

“We haven’t seen rain and flooding like this in this area for years,” he said, looking for anything that could help him build shelter for his pregnant wife and child.

Heavy rains typically fall in Sudan between May and October, and the country faces severe flooding every year, destroying property, infrastructure and crops.

Floods have claimed at least 79 lives and left thousands homeless this year, officials said.

On Sunday, Sudan declared a state of emergency over floods in six states, including the Nile.

The crisis comes as Sudan is reeling from deepening political unrest and a spiraling economic crisis, exacerbated by last year’s military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Almost a quarter of Sudan’s population – 11.7 million people – are in need of food aid.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing government data, estimates that more than 146,000 people were affected by flooding this year and 31,500 homes were damaged or destroyed.

But the United Nations is warning that with more than a month of rain left this year, up to 460,000 people could be affected by flooding – far more than the average of 388,600 people affected between 2017 and 2021.

“Compared to the same period in 2021, the number of people and places affected has doubled this year,” OCHA said Monday.

The floods are not just affecting the Nile, the hardest hit is the war-ravaged western region of Darfur, where over 90,000 people have been affected.

Since the start of the devastating rainy season, thousands of Sudanese families have been left homeless, taking shelter under tattered sacks.

“Everything is totally destroyed,” said Haidar Abdelrahman, sitting in the ruins of his house in Makaylab.

OCHA warns that “swollen rivers and pools of stagnant water increase the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera, acute watery diarrhea and malaria.”

Abdelrahman said he fears the floodwaters have also forced scorpions and snakes to move. “People are scared,” he said.

“People urgently need basic help against insects and mosquitoes,” said Seifeddine Soliman, 62, of Makaylab.

However, Health Ministry official Yasser Hashem said the situation was “under control so far” with “spraying campaigns to prevent mosquitoes”.

From around 3,000 residents in Makaylab, they received about six or seven cases a day, mostly diarrhea, he said.

Upstream, on the White Nile, neighboring South Sudan has seen record rainfall and overflowing rivers in recent years, driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, with the United Nations saying the “extraordinary flooding” was linked to the effects of climate change.

Sudan’s Nile flooding is also coming despite Ethiopia’s controversial construction of a 145-meter (475-foot) hydroelectric power station upstream across the Blue Nile.

Some experts, like US-based research and campaign group International Rivers, have warned that changing weather patterns due to climate change could lead to erratic flooding and droughts in the Nile River Basin, the world’s longest river.

In Makaylab, many fear the devastating floods are just the beginning.

“The rainy season is just beginning,” said Abdelrahman. “And there’s nowhere for people to go.”