WFP seeks US$65 m for flood victims

KAMPALA – The World Food Programme appealed for nearly US$65 million to feed up to 1,7 million people in Uganda, saying on Tuesday the east African country was hard hit by severe floods that have swept across the continent this summer.

More than a million people across at least 17 countries have been affected by the rains, according to the United Nations. In Ghana, the death toll from the flooding has risen to 32, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement Tuesday.Uganda has also been hard-hit, and the money will help stave off hunger, WFP said.”Our teams are on the ground distributing food to flood victims, but access is difficult and without new funds, everything is in jeopardy,” said WFP Country Director Tesema Negash.In eastern Uganda, nine people have been reported killed and 150 000 have been made homeless since early August.Another 400 000 – mainly subsistence farmers – have lost their livelihoods after their fields were flooded or roads washed away and the rains are forecast to worsen in the next month.WFP in Uganda said it is bracing for an influx of thousands fleeing fighting in eastern Congo.On the night of Aug.30 alone, some 30 000 asylum-seekers entered Uganda, the group said.Most have returned home, however.In Somalia, Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled told journalists that southern Somalia faced a “humanitarian catastrophe,” because rivers had burst their banks, flooding farms and destroying crops.The rivers began flooding in late August following heavy rains in Ethiopia, where they originate from, Guled said.On the other side of the continent, Ghana in west Africa has also been heavily hit.Three regions in the north, the country’s traditional breadbasket, have been declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages were submerged.Torrential rains between July and August killed at least 32 people and displaced a quarter of a million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday.Nampa-APIn Ghana, the death toll from the flooding has risen to 32, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement Tuesday.Uganda has also been hard-hit, and the money will help stave off hunger, WFP said.”Our teams are on the ground distributing food to flood victims, but access is difficult and without new funds, everything is in jeopardy,” said WFP Country Director Tesema Negash.In eastern Uganda, nine people have been reported killed and 150 000 have been made homeless since early August.Another 400 000 – mainly subsistence farmers – have lost their livelihoods after their fields were flooded or roads washed away and the rains are forecast to worsen in the next month.WFP in Uganda said it is bracing for an influx of thousands fleeing fighting in eastern Congo.On the night of Aug.30 alone, some 30 000 asylum-seekers entered Uganda, the group said.Most have returned home, however.In Somalia, Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled told journalists that southern Somalia faced a “humanitarian catastrophe,” because rivers had burst their banks, flooding farms and destroying crops.The rivers began flooding in late August following heavy rains in Ethiopia, where they originate from, Guled said.On the other side of the continent, Ghana in west Africa has also been heavily hit.Three regions in the north, the country’s traditional breadbasket, have been declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages were submerged.Torrential rains between July and August killed at least 32 people and displaced a quarter of a million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday.Nampa-AP