ILIGAN, Philippines, 16 March 2012 – Ten-year-old Joy Crizelle lives with her grandfather, sister, two aunts and uncles, and a nephew in a small one-room hut at an evacuation centre in Barangay Mandulog, in Iligan. Their village was one of the worst affected by the flash floods that followed Tropical Storm Washi in December.
“We were asleep in our house when the flood came,” Joy said. “We had to leave immediately. My grandfather brought blankets for me and my sister, but we left everything else behind. I was very scared. It was dark and the water was rising, and I could hear people crying out for help.”
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines, 25 January 2012 – In City Central School, in Cagayan de Oro City, two teachers recently held their first day of classes since the devastating floods that swept through their community – even as their own futures looks uncertain.
Vivian Benedictos and Marilou Gambuta, co-teachers and best friends, share a first-grade classroom at the school. It is a space they not only teach in, but now also live in.
NEW YORK, USA, 23 December 2011—Low-lying Bangladesh is one of the countries most affected by climate change, and the people who live in the Chars – small islands created by floods or erosion in the vast Ganges delta—are the most vulnerable of all.
RENK, South Sudan, 2 November 2011 – Three months after South Sudan separated from Sudan, becoming an independent nation, many South Sudanese are struggling to return home.
Since June, almost 20,000 returnees have streamed into Renk, a rural town near the Sudan-South Sudan border. Most say they could only afford transportation to Renk and don’t have the means to continue on to their final destinations. In addition, roads are non-existent in this part of South Sudan, where most of the land is submerged in flood waters during the rainy season. Traveling farther south by Nile River barge can take weeks.
Children and families continue to cope – and rebuild their lives – a year after devastating monsoon floods struck Pakistan. This is one in a series of stories on their situation, one year on.
By A. Sami Malik
PUNJAB, Pakistan, 3 August 2011 – “Before the floods, this village had a one-room Masjid [mosque] school. Most of the children sat under a tree. We now have this beautiful school, and the children love it,” says Mukhtar Ahmad, Headmaster of the Government Primary School in Mullanwala village, located in the Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
Children and families continue to cope – and rebuild their lives – a year after devastating monsoon floods struck Pakistan. This is one in a series of stories on their situation, one year on.
By Adnan Raja
SINDH PROVINCE, Pakistan, 28 July 2011 – Ejaz Najum, 12, was living in Karampur, in the northern part of Sindh Province, when floods ravaged his entire village and surrounding communities in late July 2010. Across Pakistan, the massive floods inundated farms, schools and health facilities, and disrupted basic social services, from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea.
