In dire straits

Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is also one of the least equipped to protect its population against climate-fueled natural disasters.

Roughly the size of Massachusetts or Belgium, the Eastern African country has been facing more frequent floods and landslides in the past few years. In some regions, unpredictable rain patterns have ruined crop after crop.

It happened at night, when all the neighborhood was asleep. “Suddenly, there was water everywhere in the house. We were in a panic, trying to save our children while the house was swept away”, Jeannette Niyibigira recalls. "I finally managed to grab my kids and flee, and ended up on the main road, empty handed, soaked, cold, thinking it was Noah’s flood and the end of the world.”

It’s been over a year since the river flowing into Lake Tanganyika broke its banks, forcing more than 25,000 people to flee the remnants of their homes.  Since then, fed by the rains, the level of the lake continues to rise. A large part of Gatumba, a neighborhood located along the lake’s shore, just outside of Bujumbura, is now flooded. Children are fishing in what used to be vegetable fields.

In March 2020, Jeannette and her family, along with thousands of others had to find a place to stay. Their own clay houses having melted or fallen apart, they were given an area of bush nearby for their tents made of tarpaulin and pieces of tin - what they now call home. As the rains continue, each storm brings more fear and destruction.

Thousands of others have remained in the houses that still stand, surrounded by stagnant, dirty water. They sometimes come face to face with hippos and crocodiles. They also are subject to other, less visible but equally formidable dangers: diseases caused by dirty water and malaria.

In December 2019, in northern Burundi, near the borders with DRC and Rwanda, the village of Gisheke was swallowed by tons of mud, cascading down the mountainside. “It had been raining for days, Thomas Misego, the former village chief, recalls. He was out of town, attending official meetings. “During the night, I started getting phone calls, telling me that my people were dying.” The next morning, Thomas managed to go back to Gisheke, only to start digging into the ruins. Thirty-seven people died that night, 10 of whom the bodies were never found. Over 350 houses were destroyed. “When it starts raining now,” Thomas says, “we are so scared. We never imagined this kind of event could happen in the region.”

Heavy rains and massive deforestation are the perfect recipe for landslides, in a mostly rural country where the population is growing fast. And while some regions struggle with too much rainfall and water, others, less than 200 kilometers away, are desperate for the rains to follow the patterns they have lived with for generations.

Kibande Hill, in Kirundo province, in northeastern Burundi, has not seen a good crop for the past three years. At first, the rains start, as usual. Farmers start planting, plants start growing, and eventually dry up as a result of weeks without rainfall. “Everybody here is food-deprived, says a local official. Children are used to having only one meal a day, and often it’s just boiled cassava leaves”.

As always, the most vulnerable families are the worst hit. Single mothers who own no land, and previously barely survived by working in other people’s fields, are now so precarious that they have no option but to sell what little they have. In Janvière Kangoro’s case, it was the tin roof of her house, earlier this year. She only made enough money to feed herself and her three children for two weeks. A storm then destroyed the remnants of the house.

Nearly 100 000 people were affected by the natural disasters that affected Burundi in 2020, 44,222 of whom were displaced, according to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) data. Burundian authorities and humanitarian actors are mobilized to meet the most urgent needs of the affected people and to further facilitate their recovery.

Yet as always, children pay a very heavy price during and as a consequence of these disasters: many must drop out of school because their parents cannot afford to pay for schooling, because they have to work to support the family- or because the school is simply no longer there. Children are vulnerable to poor hygiene conditions triggered by dirty water, and to malnutrition when the family has no income, and therefore no food on the table. Add to that the potential exposure to violence and abuse that so easily become commonplace in a displaced persons’ site.

Responding to natural disasters in Burundi is a challenge. While coordination led by the National Platform for Risk Prevention and Disaster Management has significantly improved and the authorities have demonstrated a strong investment in organizing the response, humanitarian actors lack capacity in terms of funds and thus contingency capacity.

Because these crises are recurrent in the country, UNICEF and humanitarian actors always aim to find sustainable solutions to the problems encountered and the needs expressed by the affected populations. However, the response to immediate needs remains extremely limited, hampering the recovery capacity of the people affected, posing a high risk of protection for the most vulnerable, particularly children and women,

In 2020, UNICEF managed to cover only half of the needs of the populations affected by the floods in Gatumba. It is estimated that UNICEF Burundi needs $6 million to support Burundian families affected by natural disasters this year.

By Donaig Le Du – Chief of Communication, UNICEF Burundi