by Kitkupar C.Shangpliang - Communications
Associate
Floods in Assam, far north eastern India,
have left 2.2 million people homeless. World Vision project areas have
been affected, with most of the families of sponsored children now sheltering
in local schools.
The families of more than 800 sponsored children from the Dhemaji Area Development Project (ADP) face an uncertain future and a painful return to their waterlogged homes. Currently housed in 22 government schools converted into camps, these families are living with more than 33,000 others packed into classrooms with what little belongings they were able to salvage from the rising waters.
Escaping by foot or by boat, these families watched as their fields were inundated by water and their livestock washed away. Hemolota Taye, a 10 year old sponsored child, and her family left behind a one-acre paddy field as they fled for the rising torrent. "The paddy was our major source of income," says Toladai Taye, Hemolota's mother, "I do not know what we will do when the water recedes." Hemolota's family also lost their cows, chicken and pigs, which they reared to supplement their meager income.
World Vision staff continue to work with the government and other NGOs to provide medicines, plastic sheds, tarpaulins, and safe drinking water to flood victims sheltered in all twenty-two camps.
Reported to be the heaviest monsoon in the last four hundred years, the water which at times rose more than 80 feet above normal levels has not only left villages waterlogged and crops and livestock destroyed, but has also contaminated the drinking water wells. People are beginning to fall ill with various skin and eye diseases
Dhemaji Area Development Program (ADP) will focus on rehabilitation programs as soon as the waters subside.
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