Government urged to declare floods national disaster

By Awan Achiek

The Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) on Monday appealed to the government to declare the ongoing heavy floods a national disaster.

Edmund Yakani, Executive Director for CEPO made this call amid reports of displacement and deaths due to recent heavy flooding across parts of the country.

“CEPO calls on the leadership of the country to declare floods as humanitarian disaster. The negative implications of the floods on our communities are getting dangerous daily,” Yakani said in a statement issued in Juba.

He said that declaring floods a national disaster would enable the government to activate emergency mechanisms.

“We are losing human lives, livestock, and agricultural farms. The negative implications of the floods were extreme on the persons with disabilities across the country,” Yakani said.

Yakani said that the flood disaster management teams should come up with clear effective approaches for inclusive response.

He said the floods have exacerbated the already dire food insecurity situation, as well as causing snake bites.

“CEPO is urging the leadership of the country to rescue the communities facing the hardship imposed on them by the floods,” Yakani said.

Floods raging across the countryside have displaced over 7735,000 people across 38 counties across the country including disrupting access to essential services such as health facilities, water points and schools particularly in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State.

In addition, over 53,100 farmers and cattle keepers lost crops and livestock due to flooding.