Heavy rains that have caused severe flooding in Zambia may lead to serious food shortages and disease outbreaks, warns Jennipher Sakala, Christian Aid’s country manager based in Lusaka.
Roads and bridges have been destroyed, cutting off whole communities, as well as damaging livestock, crops and forcing Zambians to flee their homes. None of Zambia’s nine provinces has escaped the flooding, with the Southern Province so far the worst hit.
Christian Aid partner the Family Health Trust (FHT) has sent initial reports from Monze in the Southern Province – an area badly hit by the floods. Water points have been completely submerged leaving communities with no access to a clean water source, and maize crops have been completely ruined by the rains.
FHT’s programme coordinator Mr Boniface said that though few in the farming communities where FHT work have lost everything they own, most have already lost their supplies of food and are in great fear of disease. FHT’s local community networks are already providing some blankets and food items to displaced families in the area.
Christian Aid and its Action by Churches Together (ACT) network partners in Zambia are currently conducting a rapid assessment of the needs in each province which will inform the emergency response efforts.
These will likely include provision of clothing and blankets, temporary shelter materials, insecticide treated mosquito nets and water treatment supplies. Christian Aid will send additional funds to help the response once the extent of the need is clearer.
‘Predictions that the situation will get worse are worrying, we still have three to four months of the rainy season to go,’ said Jennipher Sakala. ‘Normally localised flooding – if there were heavy rains – would occur between early February and March, so this is pretty unusual and extremely worrying.’
Christian Aid partners in Zambia, whose work mainly reaches children orphaned or affected by HIV, may also need support to help communities cope with such disasters in future, as occurrences of unusually extreme weather look set to grow.