Around 2.6 million people were displaced in South Sudan between 2020 and 2022 alone, a result of both conflict and violence (1 million) and flooding (1.5 million). In practice, the two are interlinked, as flooding has caused displaced herders to come into conflict with resident farmers over land.
Stagnant floodwater also leads to a rise in water-borne infections like cholera and hepatitis E, snakebites, and vector-borne diseases like malaria. As people become malnourished, these diseases become more dangerous. Malnutrition is already a big problem, especially for the 800,000 or so people who have fled into South Sudan from Sudan following the start of a separate conflict there in April 2023.
Liz Stephens & Jacob Levi at African Arguments. South Sudan faces world’s first permanent mass displacement due to climate change
Floods have forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave the Sudd region, possibly never to return.
I felt such hurt reading this article. My heart breaks for the people. There is pain too connected to the metaphor of the Earth as our mother. And so the location of this ongoing tragedy along the Nile instills a sense of grief for our Mother Earth and our love for her.