Kenya, heavy rains in East Africa force thousands of refugees to abandon their homes

ROMA – Thousands of people, including refugees, continue to be affected by the heavy rains and severe floods that are devastating East Africa caused by the phenomenon The boy. L’UNHCRthe United Nations Refugee Agency, is particularly concerned about the thousands of refugees and other displaced people forced once again to flee for their lives after their homes were swept away.

Escape from the hell of the Dadaab refugee camp. In Kenya, nearly 20,000 people in Dadaab refugee camps – home to more than 380,000 refugees – have been displaced by rising water levels. Many of them are among those who have arrived in the last two years after fleeing severe drought in neighboring Somalia. Around 4,000 people are currently sheltering in six schools whose facilities have been extensively damaged. The others stay with friends or relatives in other parts of the camp. Several latrines have collapsed, putting refugees at risk of deadly water-borne diseases.

In Burundi.

Around 32,000 refugees – nearly half of the country’s refugee population – live in flood-affected areas, and 500 of them require urgent assistance. In the capital, Bujumbura, refugee families along with many Burundians, including elderly people, have had to relocate several times due to continually rising water levels. Access to food and other basic necessities is increasingly difficult as prices have risen due to high fees for using canoes to move goods.

Education has stopped. It stopped because the classrooms were flooded and the teaching materials were destroyed. Outside of Bujumbura, rental prices have reportedly doubled, making relocation too expensive for many refugee families, leaving them little choice but to remain in their waterlogged homes. The Nyanza Lac municipality in Makamba province, an area that has welcomed 25,000 Burundian refugees returning home from exile in recent years, is also badly affected.

Disasters in other countries in the region. Other countries in the region where displaced people are among the worst affected include Somalia, where more than 46,000 internally displaced people in five locations in the country’s south have been forced to relocate due to flash floods, and Tanzania, where more than 200,000 refugees from mainly the countries of DRC and Burundi hosted in the Nyarugusu and Nduta camps were hit. Shelters within the two camps were damaged, affecting around 200 families. The UNHCR office in Kigoma was also recently flooded.

The work of UNHCR. The women and men of the UN agency are working closely with local authorities and partners, quickly delivering crucial aid and providing protection services to refugees and affected communities living nearby.

Basic necessities. In Kenya, basic necessities such as tarpaulins, mosquito nets, dignity kits, soap and jerry cans are being provided to refugees, with particular attention to the elderly and those living with disabilities. Families are being helped to move to safer places until the waters recede.

The uninhabitable Horn of Africa. Climate change is making many parts of the world, especially in fragile regions such as East Africa and the Horn of Africa, increasingly uninhabitable. Storms are more devastating. Fires have become commonplace. Floods and droughts are intensifying. Some of these impacts are irreversible and threaten to continue to worsen, and displaced people are bearing the brunt of the impact.

Timely response actions to floods impossible. These floods show gaps in preparedness and timely action. Available funding to address the impacts of climate change does not reach forcibly displaced people, nor the communities that host them. Without help to prepare for, resist and recover from climate-related shocks, they face a greater risk of further displacement.