Villages and farms swept away by flash floods across Sudan

Flash floods following torrential rains have left a swath of destruction across Sudan. Entire farms and villages have been swept away, the capital Khartoum has been hit hard, and essential road links disrupted, while there are concerns that floods will also inundate the camps hosting thousands of South Sudanese refugees.

Reports reaching Radio Dabanga from White Nile state say that the floods swept away 17 villages in the Administrative Unit of Jouda in El Jebelein locality in. Large tracts of agricultural areas have been swept away, drowning an untold number of livestock. The floods forced the residents to leave their villages for higher places, while some of them took shelter with their relatives.

Sources said that an area 10 kilometres wide is submerged under a metre of flood water, that descended from the south-east from the Um Dalous khor (streambed). The sources indicate that the floods threaten to flood 15 other areas, including the refugee camps for South Sudanese, and threaten to cut off the road linking Sudan with South Sudan.

Preliminary inventory operations are now underway to find out the losses and damages to homes, educational facilities, agricultural areas. and livestock.

The rains and floods caused the erosion of the national road from Atbara to Port Sudan, in the Houdi area on Monday morning. Callers told Radio Dabanga that Atbara-Haya-Port Sudan road was cut off at two points, and that vehicles and buses were directed to use the Kassala-Port Sudan road instead. All traffic stopped on the road, while vehicles and trucks piled up at the cut off points.

The National Authority for Roads and Bridges called on road users to be careful, especially as there are flooded areas of the road ranging from one to two kilometres.

In Khartoum, strong winds, rain, and thunderstorms hit large parts of the state at dawn on Monday. Several callers told Radio Dabanga that the rain lasted for long hours and that water flooded large parts of the capital.

The floods also cut off the West Nile road, north of Omdurman. In Omdurman, a large number of houses, latrines, and bridges partially or completely collapsed in Karari locality and the countryside in northern Omdurman. The Coordination of the Karari Resistance Committees sent a distress call to the government and civil society organizations for urgent intervention, noting that the recent rains caused great damage to property and lives in the locality.

Heavy rains and flooding have affected over 88,000 people in 13 out of Sudan’s 18 states since the start of the rainy season in July, according to the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). The water levels in the Nile River are above flood risk level in Khartoum, Ed Dein and Shendi stations, according to the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, with several residential neighbourhood in the capital under water. The rain is forecast to continue until next week.