With support from Kerk in Actie (KiA), ICCO provides relief support to 1600 households in Northern Bangladesh and 500 households in Central Nepal. Heavy rainfalls have triggered floods and landslides in India, Nepal and Bangladesh resulting in over 300 deaths and affecting millions of lives. Flooding and landslides are a regular occurrence during the monsoon season, but has been made worse by the record-breaking heat in parts of India and Pakistan, which are related to global warming.
1600 Households helped in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, ICCO is conducting an Emergency Need Assessment (ENA) in the areas where partner organizations, Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS) and Gana Unnayan Kendra (GUK), are active. There we provide emergency support: dry food, hygiene kits, and water purifying tablets to 1600 households. When the situation improves, ICCO also wants to support in other ways: rebuilding shelters, distributing livestock and giving seed input to 900 households.
500 Households helped in Nepal
In Nepal, ICCO conducted an Emergency Need Assessment (ENA) in Rautahat district, through our partner organization Center for Community Development (CCDN), and identified the most at-risk households by working together with Bhagwati and Yamuna Mai rural municipalities. Here ICCO supported 500 households with essential food packages that will last a family of five for 15 days and non-food items such as water purifier, soaps and mosquito nets in two tranches: on the 19th and 21st of July.
The situation on the ground has temporarily improved and the flood waters have receded back. However, the flooding has visibly destroyed many of the houses, especially mud houses and sheds for livestock. Most of the affected people have also suffered huge damages to their personal property, loss of stored grains, utensils, bedding, clothes etcetera. Crucially many of the farmers who farm on leased lands, have suffered financial losses, due to floods submerging their lands ready for paddy planting. Some have lost their rice seedlings that were ready for transplanting. They will have to wait out the entire crop season, further compacting their economic losses.
Expand relief efforts
In coordination with other ACT Alliance members, ICCO plans to further expand the scope of relief efforts to other areas. A Rapid Market Assessment to analyze longer term supply chain restoration needs, and a preliminary observation on the scale of destruction of productive livelihood assets will be carried out.
The relief effort is funded by Kerk in Actie.