Government figures indicate that in northern Ghana flooding has affected more people than in all other West African countries combined, yet the disaster has received little international attention compared to floods elsewhere in the region.
The government’s National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) says floods have affected close to 275,000 people in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions of the country. Parts of the Western Region have also seen flooding. Most of the affected people are displaced, although some are still living in what is left of their homes.
“The magnitude is unbelievable but yet … nobody is talking about it on the international scene. It’s amazing,” Benonita Bismarck, head of operations for the Ghana Red Cross, told IRIN.
President John Kufuor has declared all three northern regions disaster zones. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the floods have killed at least 20 people, destroyed bridges linking Ghana to its neighbouring countries, and knocked over or partially destroyed around 20,000 homes.
In the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions – which make up about 40 percent of Ghana’s landmass – damage is widespread. Thousands of hectares of farmlands have been destroyed. Some villages are accessible only by a 10-km canoe ride, one aid worker said.
In the Upper East Region all eight districts have been hit, said George Isaac Amoo, NADMO national coordinator, who called the area “the most poverty endemic region in the country”.
The numbers of people affected are constantly changing, but provisional numbers as of 13 September from NADMO and the Ministry of Interior indicate 227,812 in the Northern Region, 37,429 in the Upper East Region, 7,811 in the Western Region and 473 in the Upper West Region.
But as Amoo pointed out: “The number of victims is rising each passing day.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that aside from Ghana, 204,000 people have been affected by floods in 11 countries across West Africa.
The Ghana Red Cross in the Upper East Region says 22 people have died there and estimates that 90,000 people have been cut off in the Builsa district due to destroyed roads and bridges. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Ghana found that 11,239 homes were damaged in the Upper East Region, most of them completely destroyed. A UNICEF team estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 people were displaced in six of the region’s eight districts.
Source: GhanaWeb
