Having made various searches on my phone and computer for my South Sudan report, reports now come through fairly frequently. Most refer to the ongoing civil war in Sudan, its destructive influence on the country, and the indirect effect on South Sudan, which is coming under more pressure due to the problem of exporting its oil for finance and being overwhelmed by the influx of refugees.
Alongside these reports are ones that include reports of the continued flooding which relates to my previous posts, such as this one from the Sudan Tribune newspaper. What caught my eye was the distorted comments from the help agency involved:
Sudan conflict displaces over 900,000 people into South Sudan: UN - Sudan Tribune
With nearly a million people crossing over the border into South Sudan since the beginning of 2023,the problems are going to rapidly increase. No wonder then that there is going to be a significant increase in the number of people susceptible to the flooding. The main comment comes from Anita Kiki Gbeho, the humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, who cites climate change, disease outbreaks and economic crisis as having exacerbated the ongoing conflict in Sudan. She also said that floods resulting from the climate crisis have affected at least 1.4 million people this year.
I would have expected Ms. Gbeho to have been better informed, having so much experience in disasters around the world. But typical of the UN, for who she works, climate change is misguidedly given as the villain.
To start with, disease outbreaks and the economic crisis are the RESULT of the civil war, and the flooding is at least in part due to the lack of maintenance to waterways and the displacement of the population into areas prone to flooding. The flooding is NOT due to the climate crisis, as this is not supported by the data (see my earlier posts).Once again, blaming the so-called climate crisis only detracts from the real issues. Perhaps the learned Ms. Gbeho should bother to actually read the Sudan Tribune, on the same page there is a reference to another flood story, from Sudan.
White Nile faces flood risk after RSF closes Jebel Aulia Dam - Sudan Tribune
The story is based on the closure of a dam due to the civil war. So once again, it is the war that creates the flooding, not the other way around. The report also mentions climate change, but comes up with the idea that the flooding has been increasing since the 1960s. Strange how the weather data for this period show a decrease in rainfall!
This comment also seems odd: ‘Closing the Jebel Aulia dam is causing water to build up, raising the risk of flooding downstream.’If the dam is closed then water levels will rise UPSTREAM.
The Independent newspaper also reports on the flooding:
How overflowing River Nile is forcing thousands to survive on edge of canal | The Independent
Here are some quotes and my comments:
‘Such flooding is becoming a yearly disaster in South Sudan, which the World Bank has described as “the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change and also the one most lacking in coping capacity.’’
Firstly, the flooding has always occurred, but previously the population did not live there. The report even notes this fact in a later paragraph. Surely it is the lack of coping capability that makes a country more liable to climate change? It is certainly NOT that the climate has changed in this area more than others, as the sentence suggests. So the sentence is complete nonsense. Perhaps the Word Bank should look at their own weather data before making such a false statement.
‘Seasonal flooding has long been part of the lifestyle of pastoral communities around the Sudd, the largest wetlands in Africa, in the Nile River floodplain. But since the 1960s the swamp has kept growing, submerging villages, ruining farmland and killing livestock.’
Here is confirmation of the previous only seasonal use of the swamp areas, but stating that the extent has increased since the 1960s goes against the data from rainfall, which shows a decrease over this period. So if the statement is true, there must be other reasons for it happening: land use change, or silting up of drainage ditches for example. An increase in swampland since the 1960s? The dam was built in 1984, so not a likely contender. Wiki give the following reference:
They reference a paper that says that the wetland area increased during the 1960s, but the paper was written in 1984, so does not cover the 40 year period since. It gives the reason as an increase in water levels in Lake Victoria but we know that since then there was a period of low levels of water. So it looks like this reference has been taken out of context, and the person giving it as being correct has not checked out his source properly.
The latest overflowing of the Nile has been blamed on factors including the opening of dams upstream in Uganda after Lake Victoria rose to its highest levels in five years.
Strange to have this fact mentioned at the end of the report. Although completely true, It goes against most of what has been previously mentioned.
So do we have bad reporting, ill informed ‘experts’ or deliberate avoidance of the real problems? My guess would be a combination of them all.
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