Rains in Darfur leave six dead, parts of Khartoum and Sennar flooded

Torrential rains caused the death of four people in North Darfur and two in Central Darfur on Friday. In Khartoum, a large number of streets flooded. Rural parts of Sennar are affected as well.

Four people drowned when flash floods swept through Kutum valley in North Darfur on Friday morning. “El Haj Hamida, El Haj Zein Ismail, Abubakr Saleh, and El Shafee Khatir, died” a listener told Radio Dabanga from Kutum.

In Bindisi, Central Darfur, Yasin Juma (23) and Hussein Wad Kattal drowned. Two other men went missing. Large areas of farmland in the areas of Bindisi and Mukjar are flooded.

Khartoum was also hit by heavy rainfall on Friday morning that flooded parts of the city. Power outages were reported in many neighbourhoods. In the suburbs, dozens of houses built with mud bricks collapsed.

The western part of rural Sennar in eastern Sudan was flooded as well.

On Thursday, torrential downpours in El Gezira led to the death of two young women. In Khartoum, three people were fatally struck by lightning. The Khartoum-Wad Madani highway was flooded.

The Undersecretary of Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health reported on August 5 that 12 states in the country were affected by heavy rains.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan in end July, heavy rains and flash floods affected an estimated 13,000 people in Darfur and eastern Sudan so far.

Campaign

The Sudanese Professionals Association and political parties have called on “all Sudanese” to continue with the ‘draining of rainwater’ campaign.

The Association said that people in Khartoum, El Gezira, East Darfur, North and West Kordofan, Kassala, and El Gedaref are cleaning drainage ditches and digging new ones.

Rain water drainage systems in Sudan consist of ditches that are usually not maintained. Often residents collect funds among themselves to clean them in preparation of the annual rainy season between May/June-October.

On Tuesday, residents of Kalakla, a densely populated district in southern Khartoum, staged a vigil, demanding rain water to be removed from the streets.

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