Press action medeor

Emmanuel Limi has just returned from the disaster areas in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The East Africa expert from the health aid organization action medeor was actually in Togo. After the devastating floods in the neighboring countries, he interrupted his trip to visit the flood areas. He brought back shocking impressions: “In Burundi, many places are still impassable and can only be reached by boat. Hospitals and schools have been flooded, there is a lack of medication and cholera is spreading,” Limi says.</p<

The situation in Congo is even worse: “In the South Kivu region, the floods came out of the mountains and carried large stones with them, which simply wiped away entire villages,” Limi reports. “The ground in these villages is still soft - not from the water, but because the debris and the dead are still in it.” It is therefore only possible to estimate how many dead and missing people there are; the local authorities estimate between 5,000 and 7,000. “And the survivors have lost everything, really everything,” Limi, who has spoken to people who have lost not only their possessions but also their entire family in the floods.

Emmanuel Limi knows the region, as action medeor has been active in the border region between Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo for years, providing people with food, medicine and water. Since the first days after the floods, the aid organization has been supporting the disaster region with additional medicines, food and hygiene kits. “Together with the people here, we have planted fields where maize and beans were grown, very large areas,” Limi explains, “three quarters of which have now been destroyed.”

Like the people in Burundi and the DR Congo, hundreds of thousands of people in Somalia are also suffering. action medeor has also been active there for years and severe flooding has also caused major damage in recent days. In the Hiraan region and in the Beledweyne district, rivers have burst their banks and entire villages and fields have been flooded. "Thousands of people have sought shelter in neighboring villages and camps. The wet conditions and lack of hygiene in the makeshift shelters mean that diseases such as malaria are spreading rapidly,” Alessa Behler reports. She is responsible for Somalia at action medeor and is currently on her way to Africa to coordinate aid measures with the local partner organization WARDI. This includes a mobile clinic that has been traveling through the villages and is now primarily visiting the camps where the survivors have taken refuge after the floods.

“I am particularly concerned about the recurring alternation between droughts and floods in Somalia,” Behler states, “because each time people lose their crops and therefore their livelihoods.” Nevertheless, there are also rays of hope: in places where action medeor has been able to help people to better arm themselves against natural disasters, not everything is lost. “Together with the local people, we have developed procedures to protect their seeds and fields against flooding,” Behler reports. This is why the people in the villages supported by action medeor still have reserves.

In order to provide sustainable help, action medeor takes a variety of measures in its projects to improve people's food security. In addition to protecting harvests and seeds, these include improved resource management, literacy courses and teaching people about healthy eating and improved cultivation methods. “We hope that we will be able to continue these effective long-term measures after the initial emergency aid,” explains Behler.

If you would like to support the work of action medeor, you can make a donation. If you donate online at www.medeor.de/spenden, you can also leave your address for a donation receipt. The classic way is via IBAN DE78320500000000009993 at Sparkasse Krefeld, donation keyword: “Emergency aid worldwide”.

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