Niger floods kill four, displace 20,000

AUGUST 15, 2015 : FRANCE24
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At least four people have died and more than 20,000 have been
affected by floods in Niger caused by weeks of heavy rain, the
United Nations said Friday.
The bad weather has destroyed 2,170 homes and flooded nearly
545 hectares of agricultural land, the UN’s Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a
statement.
Around 3,100 displaced victims are currently living in schools or
have been taken in by host families, the agency said citing
Niger’s emergency civil protection services.
The bad weather is showing no sign of abating as the rainy
season continues in the impoverished sub-Saharan country,
which has often faced severe food crises due to flooding or
drought.
Since late July, local media have reported repeated floods,
particularly in central and southern Niger.
In the capital Niamey, the authorities have asked residents living
near the edge of the Niger River to leave their homes because of
the flood threat. The water level is at 580 centimetres (19 feet),
well above the “alert” threshold of 530 centimetres, according to
the Niger Basin Authority (NBA).
Of the eight regions of Niger, only Diffa in the east, which is
home to more than 100,000 refugees who have fled violence in
neighbouring Nigeria, has not been affected by the bad weather.
In 2014, floods have killed dozens of people and affected
hundreds of thousands, according to official figures.
The Niger River, the third largest in Africa, has a flood basin of
over two million square kilometres (770,000 square miles) which
is home to more than 100 million people from Guinea to Nigeria.