RUBAVU -People displaced by last week’s heavy rains in Nyabihu and Rubavu districts in the Western Province still lack adequate emergency relief supplies, officials have said.

On Friday, officials reported fifteen deaths and over five hundred homes were washed away by last Wednesday’s torrential rains that have pounded the East African region in the past weeks.

Displaced people have been settled in Kijote Cell, Bigogwe Sector and other drier areas in Rubavu.

Relief agencies, including the Red Cross, district authorities and Nyabihu Catholic Church rushed in to help provide necessities to the displaced.

But yesterday officials said that supplies, especially food and drinking water, are in seriously shortage. "Children cannot go to school due to lack of scholastic materials which were all destroyed by the foods,” a local official said on condition of anonymity.

The Red Cross has provided four hundred tents for temporary shelter while Nyabihu Catholic Church is giving Irish potatoes.

Health officials have warned about disease outbreaks due to poor sanitation conditions. Temporarily pit-latrines are being used.

Nyabihu district raised Frw8m and Rubavu Frw5m but officials said the money was not enough to cater for the displaced people’s basic needs.

Government promised to give iron sheets, which are yet to be delivered.  When contacted yesterday, the Secretary General in the Ministry of Local Government, Eugene Balikana said that the reason much of the relief had not yet been delivered to the affected families was because there was no immediate budget for such contingencies.

He said that the matter was not part of the ministry’s duties, saying disaster management was under the Prime Minister’s office.

"We are only involved because we are in charge of territorial administration but these duties are no longer under our ministry,” he said.

He however said much was being done to address the problem. "We have not sat back, we have been mobilising funds to support these people. In fact I was discussing with the Belgian Ambassador to see how they can offer support,” Balikana said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Local Government, Social Welfare and Good Governance, Protais Musoni, said that the State Minister for Social Welfare, Christine Nyatanyi, had camped in the stricken areas.

He said she was there to coordinate emergence relief operations. Others top officials including Musoni, Information Minister Prof. Laurent Nkusi and State Minister for Lands and Environment, Patricie Hajabakiga, have all visited the devastated areas.

On Friday, the Mayor of Nyabihu, Charles Ngirabatware said that Bishop John Rucyahana of the Episcopal Church also donated beddings to the displaced people.

Ngirabatware blamed the heavy rains on the destruction of the nearby Gishwati Forest.

Disease alert
In a related development, BBC reports that severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

Scores of people have died and much of the continent’s most fertile farmland has been washed away in what is being described as a humanitarian disaster.

The UN said more rain was expected and warned that the need for food, shelter and medicine was urgent.

Some 17 countries have been affected in West, Central and East Africa.

UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said: "The rains are set to continue and we are really concerned because a lot of people are homeless and infectious diseases could emerge.

"Some of the poorest countries, like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger - the poorest nation in the world - are badly affected.”

The UN said the floods could lead to locust infestations and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

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