Crisis watch

India floods

Over 5 million people have been affected by devastating floods in Assam and Bihar caused by heavy monsoon rains and rising water levels in rivers. Survivors are in need of shelter and hygiene materials. CARE will be responding in Morigaon district, Assam, and Sitamarhi district, Bihar, by reaching out to 5,000 households with shelter kits, which include tarpaulins, rope, plastic floor mats and blankets, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) kits, which include soap, toothbrush, tooth paste, sanitary napkins, disinfectant soap and bleaching powder.

South Sudan

An estimated 7.7 million people will be in need of food assistance during the peak of the lean season as the food security situation is expected to deteriorate further. Extreme levels of acute food insecurity persist given large-scale losses of household assets, depletion of household food stock and disruption to livelihoods over recent years.

South Sudanese women remain at significant risk of gender-based violence, with cases continuing to be persistent as a result of mass displacement due to conflict, along with food and livelihood insecurity.

The situation is further exacerbated by humanitarian access constraints, high operation costs, limited infrastructure and security threats which leaves the affected population, especially women and girls, without access to humanitarian support.

CARE South Sudan has reached 461,000 people through health, nutrition, food security, GBV/protection and peace building activities. We continue to participate in inter-agency coordination meetings to help plan for coordinated responses to humanitarian needs.

Horn of Africa: drought and food crisis

11.7 million people are severely food insecure (IPC Phase 3 and above) and over 785,000 children severely malnourished in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Uganda. These numbers are expected to rise in the months ahead as a result of consecutive poor crop-producing seasons that have destroyed livelihoods and eroded the ability of communities to cope. Many of the areas impacted by drought across the region have also been affected by internal violence and conflict.

The reduced rainfall between early March and mid-April was largely caused by Tropical Cyclone Idai, which formed in early March in the Mozambique channel and redirected precipitations away from East Africa. The worst affected areas are most of Somalia and south-eastern Ethiopia, which did not receive any significant precipitation so far, and northern and eastern Kenya, where some scattered showers were received only in late March. In most of Uganda and in some north-eastern areas of Tanzania, cumulative rainfall between early March and mid-April was up to 85 percent below average.

CARE is currently already responding to humanitarian needs in many of the affected areas. We continue to monitor the situation and are preparing to scale up our response, subject to availability of funding.

DRC: Ebola crisis

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo a public health emergency of international concern. The outbreak in the DRC has thus far killed more than 1,600 people. Benoit Munsch, CARE’s Country Director in the DRC, said:

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC urgently needs attention and support from the international community. The effort to combat Ebola in the DRC thus far has been monumental, but one place where we have failed to succeed is community engagement. The humanitarian community must work in partnership with local communities, addressing their feedback, in order to design programmes that support them in the most effective way. Ebola will not be eliminated until local communities can play a more active role in the response.

CARE began responding in August 2018 when the Ebola outbreak began, and is continuing with its community-based response in affected areas. (See the 16 July update below for more details.)

Nepal floods

Heavy monsoon rainfall has led to severe flooding and landslides particularly in Eastern and Central regions. Government authorities and the Nepal Red Cross are conducting an initial rapid assessment. CARE will prepare a detailed response plan according to needs identified in the assessments.

So far, CARE has made a preliminary decision to provide response support to 1,000 households, including a distribution of relief items from CARE’s existing stockpile (basic shelter, hygiene and dignity kits) to households in Rautahat, a rural area where available relief materials are not currently sufficient to cover all affected households. In CARE’s project area in Gorkha, a landslide has badly damaged 20 households and CARE will be providing basic shelter materials (tarps and plastic sheeting) from our stock of emergency supplies.