Aid agencies respond to overlooked Burkina Faso emergency
-21/08/06
Six thousand peopl
Aid agencies respond to overlooked Burkina Faso emergency
-21/08/06
Six thousand people were left homeless last week, as torrential rains washed away their houses in Gorom Gorom, 270 km north of the capital of Burkina Faso, report aid and development agencies working to bring emergency relief.
The floods hit a region that has paradoxically endured 30 years of drought, further threatening the lives of poor communities. The situation, paralleling one in Ethiopia, is receiving comparatively little attention in the worldís media.
Just over ten days ago the whole town of Gorom Gorom was flooded after heavy rains, damaging a nearby major dam and cutting off communications and access by road for several days.
In only three hours, six thousand people lost their houses, food reserves and all their possessions as the water reached a height of one metre in the streets. Many people sought refuge in schools or in friendsí homes, waiting for emergency aid to be deployed.
The UK-based agency Christian Aid and other church groups have been working in Gorom-Gorom since 1985, often through UCEC-Sahel, whose offices have been damaged by the floods.
UCEC-Sahel are responding urgently, helping 900 of the most affected families and over the next three weeks will distribute rice, dried fish, oil and impregnated mosquito nets to prevent cases of malaria.
The organisation usually focuses on market gardening, cereal banks, credit loans and income generating activities. Following a devastating locust invasion in 1995, they had also been distributing free cereals to the poorest families and supplying cereals banks with more stocks.
With a population of more than 64,000 people, Gorom Gorom is the major city in the Oudalan province, the most vulnerable area of Burkina Faso near the border of Niger and Mali. The region has endured 30 years of successive droughts, locust invasions, and loss of grain to birds.
Burkina Faso is the third poorest country in the world, with more than 60% of the population living on less than one US dollar equivalent a day.
[Also on Ekklesia: Christian agencies act on West Africa drought crisis; Malawi asked to drop ‘Christian nation’ moniker; Lutherans call on Brown to deepen debt relief; Monks roll out bio-farming in Africa; G8 outcome disappoints poverty and ecology lobbies; Email fraud is hitting church and charity agencies]
Aid agencies respond to overlooked Burkina Faso emergency
-21/08/06
Six thousand people were left homeless last week, as torrential rains washed away their houses in Gorom Gorom, 270 km north of the capital of Burkina Faso, report aid and development agencies working to bring emergency relief.
The floods hit a region that has paradoxically endured 30 years of drought, further threatening the lives of poor communities. The situation, paralleling one in Ethiopia, is receiving comparatively little attention in the worldís media.
Just over ten days ago the whole town of Gorom Gorom was flooded after heavy rains, damaging a nearby major dam and cutting off communications and access by road for several days.
In only three hours, six thousand people lost their houses, food reserves and all their possessions as the water reached a height of one metre in the streets. Many people sought refuge in schools or in friendsí homes, waiting for emergency aid to be deployed.
The UK-based agency Christian Aid and other church groups have been working in Gorom-Gorom since 1985, often through UCEC-Sahel, whose offices have been damaged by the floods.
UCEC-Sahel are responding urgently, helping 900 of the most affected families and over the next three weeks will distribute rice, dried fish, oil and impregnated mosquito nets to prevent cases of malaria.
The organisation usually focuses on market gardening, cereal banks, credit loans and income generating activities. Following a devastating locust invasion in 1995, they had also been distributing free cereals to the poorest families and supplying cereals banks with more stocks.
With a population of more than 64,000 people, Gorom Gorom is the major city in the Oudalan province, the most vulnerable area of Burkina Faso near the border of Niger and Mali. The region has endured 30 years of successive droughts, locust invasions, and loss of grain to birds.
Burkina Faso is the third poorest country in the world, with more than 60% of the population living on less than one US dollar equivalent a day.
[Also on Ekklesia: Christian agencies act on West Africa drought crisis; Malawi asked to drop ‘Christian nation’ moniker; Lutherans call on Brown to deepen debt relief; Monks roll out bio-farming in Africa; G8 outcome disappoints poverty and ecology lobbies; Email fraud is hitting church and charity agencies]