DR Congo Floods Hit 500,000 People

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One of the fast-emerging climate change issues is that hundreds of millions of people will lose their homes in the coming decades, and millions already have. Floods in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly from the Congo River, have forced 500,000 people to flee. Weeks after the river rose to a six-decade high, most still have nowhere to go.

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The Democratic Republic of Congo is the fourteenth largest country in the world by population, with a population of 111 million. , It is also among the poorest. Based on GDP per capita, it ranks 226th among all nations at $1,100.

The floods have not only left tens of thousands of people homeless or living in camps, but they have also destroyed thousands of businesses. To worsen the situation, the floods raised the odds that certain diseases, particularly malaria and typhoid, were more likely to spread. Again, on a financial basis, the government does not have the money, infrastructure, or logistical capacity to help all but a fraction of those dislocated.

The tragedy is not over. UNICEF recently announced, “Some weather forecasters are warning of more rain, increasing the possibility that cholera will travel from areas where it is endemic via the Congo River to the urban centre of Kisangani and then to Kinshasa, the capital.”

The Congo River will overflow again. The region in Africa where the Democratic Republic of Congo is located, including adjacent Angola, has been increasingly hit more often by heavy rain. The floods will only get worse.