About five thousand households have been displaced and their homes destroyed by floods occasioned by torrential rains in Yeri Payam of Mvolo County in Western Equatoria State since last weekend.
The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) coordinator in Mvolo County, Wilson Dokada Koza, told Radio Tamazuj on the telephone Wednesday that the situation of the affected population is dire and that they need urgent humanitarian assistance.
“What I have now found is very terrible and Yeri is in a bad situation because the water has demolished houses in the areas of Dokamari, Yeri Muzo, Dogarang, and Yeri center,” he said. “The people affected are sheltering in the church and schools. There are 5,000 households affected and whose homes have been destroyed by the water.”
Dokada said the affected children were now suffering from malaria and other waterborne diseases.
“The children are suffering front diarrhea and cough and it is still flooding and I estimate about 20,000 people who continue to flee the affected areas,” he added.
The RRC official appealed to humanitarian partners to intervene and come to the aid of the flood-displaced population by providing medicine, food, and sheltering materials.
According to historical reports from Western Equatoria, this is the third time the Yeri area has been destroyed by heavy rains, the first being in 1973 and the second in 2013.