Kenya: heavy toll after floods in the west and center of the country

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Kenya has been facing bad weather for three weeks. Seasonal rains are much heavier than usual and cause a heavy human toll in the western and central regions of the country.

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This Thursday, the government gave an assessment of these bad weather. Floods and landslides since mid-April have killed 194 people. More than 3,000 hectares of crops have been destroyed as well as many infrastructures allowing the supply of water to Nairobi and other big cities.

Several dams have reached their maximum capacity and some 100,000 residents have been evacuated by the government, which calls on those who live downstream to leave the banks of the rivers. Lake Victoria is also at a historically high level, according to the authorities.

Following these floods, the Ministry of Health announced that it would send masks and other hygiene products to the camps for the displaced in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus . Kenya has so far recorded 582 cases and 26 deaths, but the situation could be further complicated since the heavy rains are expected to continue until the end of May.

The return of locusts

And it is not the only factor which can play on the deterioration of the humanitarian situation. In addition to the coronavirus crisis, which is creating shortages in the supply of rice in particular, there is the threat of locusts.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been sounding the alarm for several weeks: a second wave of locusts is expected on the Horn of Africa, 20 times larger than the first . These are the larvae of the giant swarms from the start of the year.

In parallel with the bad weather and the Covid-19 crisis, the consequences of this second wave could be dramatic if anti-locust operations cannot be carried out properly. In total, 25 million people are threatened by the food crisis.

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• Kenya
• Natural disasters
• Coronavirus

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