More than one million people were affected by the floods, and 20 shelters have been created
With more than 11 million inhabitants, Chad is one of the countries most affected by the consequences of global climate change. It is in north-central Africa, last September it was overwhelmed by heavy rains and floods, the worst in the last decades, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in the country.
The impact on the environment and the population has been devastating; more than 1.2 million people were directly affected by the floods in the capital N’Djamena and 19 other provinces. The floods have devastated more than 341,000 hectares of farmland, swept away more than 19,000 head of cattle and destroyed houses, health facilities, roads, and bridges.
According to OCHA – the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – the overflowing of Lake Chad has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee. After the end of the emergency, many flood-affected families are still unable to return to their houses, due to the destruction of their property and lack of livelihoods. In the aftermath of the emergency, 20 shelters have been set up: eight have been set up by the local authorities, and the others have been created informally by people who have continued to camp in the surrounding area. The number of people hosted so far is 181,000.
All this happened in one of the countries with the highest level of food and nutrition crisis: more than 2.1 million people need food; 1.3 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition and another 600,000 people are at risk of falling below the poverty line due to the increase in food prices over the past year. Floods have only exacerbated an already critical humanitarian situation.
INTERSOS’ intervention
The intervention of INTERSOS, in the country since 2016, was activated from the very first weeks of flood warnings. Aid workers started an aid programme in some of the displaced shelters located around the city of N’Djamena, specifically at Toukra 1, Toukra 2 and Milezi.
Wells, latrines, and 320 shelters were built, and a school was rehabilitated to accommodate dozens of displaced families. In addition to the immediate response to the floods that hit N’Djamena, we distributed blankets, and hygiene kits, made medical examinations and distributed essential medicines, as well as 195 boxes of Plumpy’Nut and 700 boxes of Plumpy’Sup, a highly therapeutic food to combat malnutrition.
By March, the authorities plan to close most of the camps, to facilitate return to the villages. But this type of assistance requires economic support to help families, reduce the number of displaced people, and the camps are still used for shelter.
A fact that makes a humanitarian intervention in the affected area even more urgent is the substantial presence of minors; about half of the population is made up of children, boys and girls not yet of age. In recent months, most of them have been unable to attend school: only a few camps have informal educational centres which have been set up to continue their schooling. Like most structures, the schools have also suffered enormous damage, which will require further efforts to rebuild and support the affected population.