Sudanese children go hungry, roads closed after Arbat dam collapse

Emergency teams are racing against time to find out how many people are missing in floods caused by the collapse of a dam in eastern Sudan, the worst in a series of floods sweeping the country. The collapse of the Arbat Dam caused Sudan’s latest rainy season floods, which killed 30 people and may have killed dozens, and this year’s floods have been more intense and arrived earlier than usual in some areas.
“Even before the dam burst, people were trapped by the floods and couldn’t get anything from Port Sudan,” said Mohammed Osman, a leader of one of the flooded villages. “Now the aid that is coming can’t reach the people.” “The children are hungry and the roads are blocked,” he added. An excavator is transporting people and food through floodwaters in Arbat.
“We don’t know how many people are still missing (on Arbat),” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “It is very difficult to get information from there.”
In Darfur, flooding has hampered food deliveries, including the first shipment by the World Food Programme to the famine-threatened town of Krenik since the Adre crossing was reopened to humanitarian aid teams.
A local volunteer said the rains had destroyed the bridge leading to the town, where thousands of people were displaced and food was scarce.