Record floods beset a nation already on the edge
Every year, South Sudan has a rainy season. But the water levels since 2019 have set records.
Flooding this year displaced more than 700,000 people – about 1 in every 15 people in South Sudan. In some cases, mothers had so little to eat that they could not breastfeed. Cases of malaria and other waterborne illnesses surged.
People spent days building mud dikes that served as their only protection from the waters.
Among the most vulnerable each year are people living in villages in the Sudd – a vast wetland with grasses so thick that its name is derived from the Arabic word for ‘‘barrier.’’ Here, the White Nile and its tributaries swelled to levels people said they had never seen.
As war devastated this land over decades, the Sudd was a refuge for Angelina Nyajany Wan and her family.
But floods in recent years wiped out the maize and sorghum that they used to farm. With nothing else to eat, they started relying on the fish they caught and water lilies they collected for sustenance.
‘‘I’ve noticed the water level increasing every day, but I have no options,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t know how I can help these kids.’’
The situation is so dire because South Sudan is one of the world’s poorest countries, plagued by widespread violence and nearly completely lacking in development.
‘‘This is one of the worst-case scenarios that can exist,’’ said climate scientist Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla.
The rising waters are driving what the World Food Programme says is the biggest hunger crisis to hit South Sudan since it became independent from Sudan in 2011. More than 60 per cent of the population is considered at a crisis level or worse.
Nyapuoka Ruot’s daughter, whom she named Nyamuch, or ‘‘gift,’’ was born among the floods this year. After her crops and cattle died, Ruot had enough food for only one meal a day. She was unable to produce breast milk for her daughter.
A pained look flashed across Ruot’s eyes each time Nyamuch reached for her breast. All that came out was a watery mixture. She had only the water she used to boil fish to feed the girl. ‘‘I blame myself,’’ Ruot said. ‘‘I blame God. I blame the floods.’’
A few dozen feet away, a relative’s dead cow floated in the tide, the most recent example of what the water had taken.
The dead cow belonged to Chokruot Yuot, who said the loss especially stung because cattle in South Sudan are used for marriage, trading and sustenance. ‘‘Cattle,’’ he said, ‘‘mean everything.’’
Climate scientists say the floods in 2019 and 2020 were driven in part by global warminglinked changes in a weather pattern called the Indian Ocean Dipole.
In Australia, the dipole caused
unprecedented bush fires in 2019 and 2020. In East Africa, it led to extreme floods. The rains this year have been so catastrophic
for a different reason: The water from the past two years simply never receded.