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STORY: GENEVA / CONGO FLOODING
TRT: 03:51
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WHO FOOTAGE ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 19 JANUARY 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / RECENT, BRAZZAVILLE, REPUBLIC OF CONGO
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, Palais des Nations
19 JANUARY 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. Wide shot, camera
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Deputy Spokesperson, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“In Congo, that's the Congo where Brazzaville is the capital, the United Nations is responding to a flood disaster unprecedented in scale for six decades. And with hundreds of thousands of people in need of humanitarian assistance. Extreme rainfall since October last year has left the banks around the Bangui River, which is a tributary to the Congo River, to burst. A flood emergency was officially declared by the government on the 29th of December.”
5. Wide shot, press briefing
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Deputy Spokesperson, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Nine out of the country's 12 departments remain under water and a total of 1.8 million people are affected. The floods have left local communities without shelter or access to primary health services. Villages, schools and health facilities have been flooded and many water points and sanitation facilities are no longer functional. There's limited or no access to clean drinking water or sanitation in the worst affected areas, and that is in the central north of the country. Some 27,000 children are out of school.”
7. Wide shot, press briefing
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Deputy Spokesperson, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Access is a challenge because of the floods, and many villages can only be reached by boat or canoe. UN agencies have developed a response plan with the government with a total budget of some 26 million dollars. The priority sectors include shelter, food security, nutrition, health and water, sanitation and hygiene. But that's just the immediate response. The floods could also have longer term consequences. Our initial assessment estimate that 2,300 hectares of cultivated land have been flooded, which raises concern that means to produce food. For example, fruit trees and fishing gear has been destroyed and livestock has perished.”
9. Wide shot, press briefing
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
“Dr. Jean Bienvenu Dinga is his name. He's the director of the National Hydrological Service of Congo. He said it's the most exceptional event since the catastrophic floods back in December 1961. Just to give you a comparison, then in 1961, there was a measured discharge of 80,000 cubic meters per second into the Congo Basin. And in December 2023, there was a measured discharge of 74,300 cubic meters per second. And on the 9th of January, it reached 75,000 cubic meters per second.”
11. Wide shot, press briefing
FILE – WHO - RECENT, BRAZZAVILLE, REPUBLIC OF CONGO
11. Various shots, flooded village
12. Med shot, people in a canoe traversing flood water
13. Various shots, flooded village
14. Various shots, garbage floating in flood waters
15. Pan left, WHO staff in a canoe traversing flood water
Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), today (19 Jan) told reporters in Geneva that in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), the United Nations was responding to a flood disaster, “unprecedented in scale for six decades,” and with hundreds of thousands of people in need of humanitarian assistance.
Extreme rainfall since October 2023 had led the banks around the Ubangi River - a tributary to the Congo river - to burst. A flood emergency had been officially declared by the Government on 29 December. Some three weeks later, nine out of the country's 12 departments remained under water and a total of 1.8 million people were affected.
Laerke specified that more than 350,000 people urgently needed humanitarian assistance, but said, access was a challenge as “many villages could only be reached by boat or canoe.”
UN agencies have developed a response plan with the Government with a total budget of some USD 26 million. Priority sectors, Laerke said, included “shelter, food security, nutrition, health, and water, sanitation, and hygiene.”
To support the initial response, an allocation of USD 3.6 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund has been made to address the most pressing needs of 270,000 people. However, Larke said, to implement the response, more international funding would be needed as “he floods could also have longer term consequences.”
Clare Nullis, for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), informed that Jean Bienvenu Dinga of the Congo Hydrological Service said this was “the most exceptional event” since the catastrophic floods in 1961, when there had been a measured discharge of 80,000 cubic meters per second. On 9 January 2024, she noted, “the discharge had reached 75,000 cubic meters per second.”
The official death toll as of now stood as 23, while over 6,000 people were displaced.
