For weeks, forecasts have warned of increased rains due to El Nino this season, with a 90% chance it will trigger severe flooding in the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, where the planting season just started, farmers have barely recovered from one of the harshest droughts in years and yet again find themselves faced with another climatic event they have no control over.
After devastating floods killed thousands of people in Libya’s northeast, survivors mourn family and friends that perished in the disaster. Thousands of people are displaced and need food, clean water, shelter, and medical supplies. Many are also desperate to have news of their missing loved ones.
The number of people wounded by conflict in Somalia has increased dramatically this year. As hostilities have flared in different parts of the country, ambulance teams from the Somali Red Crescent Society have reported a more than three-fold rise in the number of people requiring treatment for weapon wounds.
Over 150,000 Sudanese refugees are now in Adré, on the border between Chad and the Western Darfur region of Sudan. Most of the refugees are women and children, fleeing extreme violence that has ravaged their homes and villages since April.
In the wake of the devastating floods in Libya’s northeast, over 10,000 people are still missing. The ICRC is sending additional supplies, including 5,000 body bags, to Libya to support with the dignified identification and burial of those who have tragically lost their lives.
For several weeks, gunshot victims fleeing Sudan have been streaming into Abéché in eastern Chad. Our teams there have heard accounts from some of the victims, who have described the intensity of the fighting.
Geneva (ICRC) – Consolée Rukindo was born in Rwanda during the Genocide of 1994. “My mother was holding me when they killed her,” she says, speaking about the tragic story of her early childhood. “They hit her with a machete which also took my arm.”
Geneva (ICRC) – Some 300 children that were evacuated from a Khartoum orphanage a week ago are recovering in relative safety in the city of Wad Madani.
New drone technology using AI has been developed to detect landmines and explosive remnants of war, a technological development that will help speed up mine detection and clearance in the coming years.
280 children and 70 caretakers from a Khartoum orphanage affected by heavy combat have been evacuated to a safer location outside the capital.