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Alert
Tanzania
Kyela district, Tanzania: Humanitarian Support to Flood Survivors
Geneva, 14 May 2014
1. Brief description of the emergency and impact
Rains that are continuing from last week, has caused large damages to people’s livelihoods in two divisions of Kyela district in the southern part of Tanzania, near the border with Malawi. The affected divisions include Unyakyusa and Ntebela that has a total of 12 wards. The rains according to the district commissioner and police reports has so far claimed 7 lives and 3,983 households destroyed, leaving 18,976 people homeless and with no food. A number of livestock and paddy fields have been reported to be washed away. Infrastructures including social services have been destroyed, leading to closure of social services including schools in the area.
2. Why is an ACT response needed?
The magnitude of the disaster is too big and beyond the local capacities. An effort has been made by the district and regional governments to address it, but they have not been able to reach the entire affected population. The district commissioner has appealed for a support from humanitarian organisations including the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCT), an active member of ACT Alliance in Tanzania, who has operations in the area.
3. National and international response
Services rendered so far by the government and NGOs include: Provision of 100 tents; 11 metric tons of cereal to 1,860 people (a ration for one week), mosquito nets to lactating mothers, medical services, bedding and clothing materials, 235 out of the 3,983 households have been given temporary accommodation. The district emergence committee has established a list of requirements for the displaced families for the next two months. That is 683.14 metric tons of cereal, 113.9 metric tons of legumes, 335 tents, 670 mosquito nets and a list of medicines i.e. antibiotics, infusions, disinfectants and protective gears. The Tanzanian government is also fixing and or replacing washed away bridges to enable smooth transportation of supplies to the affected area.
4. ACT Alliance response
ACT Tanzania Forum through its member (ELCT) has locally provided its church buildings to accommodate some of the affected community members and provided bedding materials and clothes. Other Tanzania Forum members are locally facilitating similar work on the eastern part of the country near Dar es Salaam where residents, are experiencing the same problem for the past month. These include: Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), DanChurchAid (DCA), Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (TCRS) and World Renew (formerly CRWRC).
5. Planned activities
Based on the fact that “every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger”, ELCT plans to assist 4,500 out of the identified 18,976 people by providing them with a three months quality food ration and, provide scholastic materials to affected school children. According to the District commissioner’s report, these are the most affected ones.
Two options are given in order to provide such assistance, i.e. providing them with the equivalent cash to purchase necessities by themselves and/or distributing purchased items to the families.
ACT member ELCT are requesting funds from the ACT Alliance RRF to be able to respond to the crisis.
6. Constraints
Availability of resources by ELCT to provide support to the most affected and vulnerable households.
Any funding indication or pledge should be communicated to Jean-Daniel Birmele, Director of Finance (jbi@actalliance.org)
