Anger rose in Kinshasa’s slums as DR Congo’s poor grappled with little more than bare hands against torrential rains and flooding Torrential rains and flooding have left 31 people dead and 20,000 families homeless in less than three weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, city authorities said. (AFP Photo/Junior Kannah)
Anger peaked in Kinshasa’s slums Wednesday as DR Congo’s poor grappled with little more than bare hands against torrential rains and flooding that have left 31 people dead and 20,000 families homeless in less than three weeks.
“They kill us from hunger, now they’re exterminating us with water,” said Jocelyne Kapinga, wading through mud, slime and fecal matter swirling inches above the heels of her rubber boots.
Since November 19, “we have recorded 31 deaths due to the collapse of homes” in repeated downpours, Kinshasa’s Interior Minister Emmanuel Akweti told AFP.
The city’s wet season normally runs from October to May, but this year the rains began only in mid-November, with a third of the average annual rainfall — or 450 mm (17.72 inches) of water — falling in less than three weeks, Akweti said.
In Ndanu, an impoverished southeastern district of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, people have been hit especially badly by this year’s unusually heavy rains.
The area sits near the Ndjili and Matete tributaries of the giant Congo river and in the 1970s served as a water reserve to irrigate vast rice-fields run by Chinese aid organisations.
But as the city’s population expanded relentlessly to hit 10 million, flimsy shacks and huts sprouted across the area to house some 50,000 people, but without sewerage or any kind of urban planning.
Most of the deaths from the recent floods occurred in the city’s particularly impoverished southern and eastern districts, notably along the banks of the giant Congo river.
Saying more heavy rain …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
