At least 54 people have died in floods that have been sweeping through the desert-covered Timbesti province of Chad's far north since last Friday, local authorities said.< /strong>
“54 people were lost in the floods in six districts of Timbesti province. “Thousands of shops and vehicles were swept away by the waters from August 9 to 14,” General Maamat Tosi Sidi, head of the Tibesti province authorities, summarized last Wednesday evening while speaking to AFP.
According to Idris. Abdallah Hassan of Chad's national meteorological service, the floods are due to “torrential rains” in the region where, under normal conditions, “the rains barely reach 200 millimeters a year”.
These rains are weather a phenomenon recorded “every five or ten years”, he emphasized.
The Borkou-Enendi-Tibesti region (or BET for short, from the initials of the three administrative divisions of northern Chad, a region neighboring Libya) is a vast desert with mountains believed to have subsoil rich in precious metals.
According to Braim Eji Maamat, president of a local association for the promotion of peace, among the victims and the missing the majority are “foreign gold miners” who were working without permits in the province.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Affairs (OCHA) of the United Nations in West and Central Africa warned, in a statement released on Tuesday, of the extremely heavy impact of “torrential rains and major floods” in the region, stressing that “Chad is the most affected country so far, with 246,883 affected by the floods in just a few weeks.” He called for “immediate action” and “adequate funding” to address the “climate crisis”.
source: CYPE
