A coordinated and rapid response is urgently needed in the decimated town of Koukou, Sila province, in eastern Chad as thousands of people have fled flood waters, seeking refuge on a hill, where there are desperate shortages of food, shelter, drinking water, and healthcare.
Koukou and surrounding villages were hit by heavy rains in early August. Wadi Bahr Azoum river, which runs alongside the town, overflowed on 5 August, causing a large part of Koukou to flood on 6 August.
On Friday, 9 August, the water rose again, but much more intensely, resulting in flooding that people have described as the worst in living memory. The entire town was devastated.
"The water came in a huge surge, with high speed, high force," says Julie Melichar, MSF's project coordinator in Sila. "In places, people could not walk anymore, they had to swim."
"We saw people fleeing, panicking that they could not make it out in time," she says. "We could hear houses collapsing all around us. We saw people looking at their homes being destroyed in front of them."
"Thousands and thousands of people moved from the town to the hill to seek refuge," says Melichar. "They tried to take whatever they could with them, but it was very little."
Many people have lost everything, trapped on a hill without clean drinking water, food, or shelter. MSF teams report that the many children, pregnant women, and elderly people are among the thousands in the informal camp.
Many wells are flooded and contaminated, with people forced to drink stagnant water. Food stocks have been destroyed in a place where there was already a food crisis before these tragic floods. People have little shelter from the rain and many have been victims of snakebites. The health centre and hospital were flooded and the majority of medical stocks are ruined.
We saw people looking at their homes being destroyed in front of them. Julie Melichar, MSF's project coordinator in Sila
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We are calling for humanitarian organisations to provide emergency assistance to people in Koukou and the region now, and to assess the needs in surrounding areas. Given the extent of the flooding, solutions must urgently be found to reach affected communities, bring supplies, and provide a rapid and coordinated response.
Food and shelter must be an immediate priority, as well as an effective water, sanitation and hygiene response to reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. People may be trapped for some time, with the risk that the floods will rise again even higher.
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All MSF staff and their families in Koukou are affected by this disaster but they are working to help their community. In an MSF boat, our colleagues and local authorities were able to rescue 296 people trapped by the waters.
"Colleagues were calling, telling us they were floating in their houses, asking us to send the boat," says Melichar. "People's rafts capsized, they had to seek refuge in trees. All through the night until the morning our boat was helping to rescue people."
MSF has set up a mobile basic health clinic on the hill and is improving access to drinking water. But this disaster has occurred at the worst possible time, when both malaria and malnutrition rates are at their seasonal peaks.
"We're treating malaria, acute watery diarrhoea and respiratory tract infections," says Melichar. "We're also extending the water system because right now people are drinking contaminated water. But people are facing shortages of everything you can imagine."
"In this scenario, I dread to think what types of health problems can develop. Epidemics are a very real threat," she says. "We're very worried. People in Koukou need humanitarian organisations to come to their aid, otherwise this natural disaster will become a humanitarian catastrophe."
