Flooding kills scores as Sudan grapples with civil war

By Nimi Princewill and Catherine Nicholls, CNN

(CNN) — The death toll from floods in Sudan has risen to 132, state-run news agency SUNA reported Tuesday, citing a government committee, in the latest tragedy for the northeast African nation already plagued by civil war.

Flash floods triggered by heavy rains and a collapsed dam swept through villages, destroying more than 12,000 homes in 10 of the country’s provinces, with more than 30,000 families affected, the committee said.

Many of the casualties were recorded in Sudan’s northwest Red Sea State where at least 30 people were killed after the collapse of the Arba’at Dam in Port Sudan on Sunday, the United Nations’s emergency relief agency said Monday.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the death toll could rise significantly with many still missing and displaced by the floods. It added that some residents were forced to escape to the mountains for safety while others were evacuated.

OCHA said that disruption to the telecommunication network due to damage “has made it difficult to gather more accurate information on the situation.” It added in a statement to CNN on Tuesday that the damage to the dam, which supplies the “primary source of freshwater for Port Sudan,” the country’s fifth-largest city, would “impact water supplies” and worsen the humanitarian situation in Red Sea State.

The latest flooding exacerbates the devastating impacts of floods which have wrecked parts of the country since June, leaving more than 100,000 people displaced, according to OCHA.

The human-caused climate crisis is making extreme weather more frequent and more severe, scientists say. Sudan is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, grappling with deadly rainfall and flooding, as well as devastating droughts.

More than 10 million people are already displaced by a year-long civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has left at least 18,000 others dead.

Over half the country’s population also faces acute hunger, OCHA said last month.

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