NAMIBIA: Floods claim livestock, crops and seeds

Photo: IRIN

Disease threat looms as floods ravage Caprivi

CAPRIVI, 23 April 2004 (IRIN) - Namibian officials are caught in a desperate bid to try and save thousands of cattle from almost certain death as the flooded Zambezi river closes in on them, while one of the country's most populated areas is threatened by outbreaks of cholera, dysentery and malaria. "If we don't do something now - like getting pontoons from Zambia or somewhere to drive the cattle out to dry land - then the stench of the rotting cattle will become unbearable, and people will become seriously ill from the infected water," Ndeutapo Amagulu, deputy permanent secretary at the ministry of environment and tourism, told IRIN. After successfully evacuating some 3,000 people with the help of the Zimbabwean Defence force, Namibian authorities are now looking at how to rescue at least 15,000 cattle. Airlifting or trying to herd the cattle by 'mokoro', an indigenous canoe, to dry land has become impossible since the Zambezi burst its banks in early April, flooding a huge area along some 100 km of the river and transforming this mostly parched land into a swamp virtually overnight. Before the floods the region had been battered by years of drought and erratic weather. Caprivi has the country's highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, now at 43 percent, and more than 20 percent of the under-15 population has lost one parent or both to AIDS-related illnesses. The floods - the worst since 1958 - have delivered a major blow to humanitarian attempts to assist the population. Just before the flooding began the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Food Programme (WFP) launched a joint emergency appeal to assist the government during the drought. To date there has been no response to UNICEF's appeal and WFP has received only token support for food aid. Government agencies began delivering drought relief and food aid to communities when the water started rising. In March the Zambians upriver put Namibians on alert about the potential floods. They acted quickly - an emergency centre was set up, the local chief put out the word by radio and mobile phones were used to warn people to leave their homes and seek shelter. Humanitarian organisations, such as the Red Cross and UNICEF, moved in to provide tents for shelter, boats for mobile clinics, water purification tablets and insecticide-treated mosquito nets to prevent malaria. Large camps have since been set up in the Kabbe constituency in eastern Caprivi, where the biggest, Lusese, now houses 1,118 people. The quick response has prevented large-scale loss of life, but two young girls died in the past week - one was bitten by a snake and another drowned on her way home from school. As far as the eye can see from a helicopter - with Zambia lying east, Angola in the west and Botswana to the south - the Zambezi has swamped the Caprivi Strip. The water has been up to seven metres deep, and in some cases villagers were forced to climb on the roofs of their homes as crocodiles circled below. "We could see the crocodiles from a distance and we all had to run to the helicopter," said 30 year-old Grace Nchindo. Grace, her twins, and 19 other family members are now staying with more than 1,000 others in tents in the Lusese camp. "We don't know what we're going to do when the waters go down because we have lost all our maize and seeds." This week only the thatched peaks of huts and faint watery circles of submerged cattle enclosures were all that was left of some villages. Clusters of huts remained on isolated islands where a few villagers had stayed behind to look after property and cattle. "The real threat may appear to have subsided but, in fact, this is the time when we really need to step up action," said Khin Sandi Lwin, UNICEF's representative from the capital, Windhoek. "This is when incidents of malaria will start showing up, and the full impact of waterborne diseases like dysentery and cholera will be felt. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has already left these people weakened. Women and children, in particular, are very susceptible to other diseases right now." Namibia, with a population of 1.8 million, has a large gap between the rich and the poor, and already 640,000 people are in need of food aid. A recent UN mission to Namibia found that acute malnutrition in children under five was as high as 15 percent in some areas, indicating a nutritional emergency. The floods have destroyed most of the maize crop and washed away newly planted seeds. Now, if the cattle cannot be rescued, an even greater threat is posed and thousands will remain on food aid.