DAKAR (AlertNet) - Crouching on the roof of her house, 48-year-old Ossida Diatta pins up a mosquito net in a shelter made of used sheets and plastic bags. The makeshift dwelling is home to Diatta and her eight children, along with her late husbandÂ?s second wife and her seven offspring.
They have been living on the roof since August when heavy rains flooded their neighbourhood in Pikine, an impoverished suburb of the Senegalese capital Dakar.
Although the flood waters that covered 85 percent of Pikine have receded, the homes of tens of thousands of its over 1 million inhabitants are still inundated. Diatta and her family expect to live on the roof for another two months before the water disappears.
"Look at how we're living. We need help," Diatta told AlertNet. "What about our dignity? There's nowhere for us to go to the toilet. And we can't bring guests here," she added, referring to an imminent feast the family would normally celebrate by inviting people to their home.
From the top of her house, the challenges at hand are clearly visible: tall reeds, abandoned homes, children skipping over pools of water coated in algae and mixed with excrement from overflowing latrines, toddlers tumbling on stacks of refuse piled up to make walking paths through the flooded areas.
Relief workers say the conditions provide a fertile breeding ground for disease.
"The malaria rate has increased and diarrhoea, dysentery and skin diseases are also increasing, creating a sort of Molotov cocktail of illnesses and health hazards,Â? said Cheikh Aliou Beye, the coordinator of Eau Vie Environnement (EVE), a local organisation that is working on water and sanitation issues in the area.
Oxfam International and EVE on Monday launched a programme to assist 30,000 people whose lives were disrupted by flooding in three areas of Pikine.
The support involves draining water from flooded zones, waste collection, filling up some waterways, providing 6000 containers to store clean water and 6000 insecticide-treated mosquito nets, as well as giving hygiene and sanitation advice.
Oxfam-supported community workers visited Diatta and her family and handed out water and sanitation kits.
Â?It is pretty-dire Â? if we donÂ?t do something now, it will get worse,Â? said Valerie Do, a public health promoter at Oxfam International in Dakar.
SEASONAL FLOODS COMMON
The flooding in Dakar's suburbs has caused the temporary displacement of over 200,000 people. Senegalese authorities have given $4 million in emergency aid to tackle the crisis and the United Nations has offered over $278,000 worth of equipment to the government to assist in pumping out the water that has flooded whole neighbourhoods.
Despite this, Lamine Thiam, the administrative head of Pikine, said the situation was Â?still disturbingÂ?.
Seasonal flooding is common in Senegal and much of West Africa. Diatta and her family have been repeating the cycle of rushing up to the roofs in the rainy season and returning to their rooms downstairs in the dry season since 2005, when the worst floods hit the suburbs of the Senegalese capital.
Her settlement is constructed on wetlands which are considered inhabitable by authorities. For years, during the long droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, the land here appeared to be solid, leading to an anarchical construction boom as many migrants from the interior of Senegal came to the capital in search of a better life.
Since the rains returned to normal at the turn of the century, the water table has saturated and heavy rainfall causes recurrent floods, a local official said.
Â?We have to move these populations to more habitable areas. But that requires a lot of resources and the state alone cannot do that,Â? Thiam told AlertNet.
Oxfam international is urging donors, council authorities, the government and other stakeholders to coordinate research and action to seek a long-term solution.
Â?Until weÂ?ve seen a major plan that includes a huge sanitation and drainage programme for Pikine, we'll still come back here next year for emergency assistance, which is not what we want,Â? Raphael Sindaye, the deputy regional director for Oxfam told AlertNet in Dakar.
In West Africa this year, over 600,000 people were displaced or lost property and over 100 others perished from heavy rains and floods. According to the United Nations Humanitarian Agency (OCHA), problems caused by urbanisation such as the absence of drainage and unplanned construction heighten the risk of property and infrastructure damage during heavy rainfall.
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