No help yet for 1,500 homeless flood victims

BUJUMBURA--At least 1,500 people left homeless by torrential rains in Burundi's southern-most province of Makamba are in urgent need of aid, government and UN officials said.

"Two hundred and fifty homes were destroyed last Saturday afternoon and there is still no humanitarian aid for the affected population," Nestor Ntakarutimana, the administrator of Makamba Commune, said on Thursday.

The worst-hit areas are in Kayogoro Commune and parts of Kibago Commune. The rains had been expected in mid-September but they came early and were far heavier than normal.

Ntakarutimana said seeds were urgently needed as the main planting season was about to begin. He called on the government and relief organisations to bring help "before there is a human catastrophe".

On Friday, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Burundi, Alexandre Gashangi, said, "We are gathering information on the situation and alerting other aid organisations."

Gashangi said the floods had devastated farmlands, with 80 goats, 17 pigs and hundreds of poultry drowning. Crops of yams, sweet potatoes, maize, bananas and potatoes were almost completely destroyed in the area.

In April, heavy rains in the lowlands of Bubanza and Bujumbura rural provinces near Lake Tanganyika destroyed hundreds of homes as well as crops and cemeteries. More than 300 homes were destroyed in Songa Commune in southern Bururi Province.