MALUALKON, South Sudan: He feels like a man who has drowned.
The worst flooding that parts of South Sudan have seen in 60 years now surrounds his home of mud and grass. His field of sorghum, which fed his family, is under water. Surrounding mud dykes have collapsed.
Other people have fled. Only Yel Aguer Deng’s family and a few neighbors remain.
This is the third straight year of extreme flooding in South Sudan, further imperiling livelihoods of many of the 11 million people in the world’s youngest country. A five-year civil war, hunger and corruption have all challenged the nation. Now climate change, which the United Nations has blamed on the flooding, is impossible to ignore.
As he empties a fishing net, Daniel Deng, a 50-year-old father of seven, recalls a life of being forced to flee again and again because of insecurity. “But this one event (the flood) is too much,” he said. “It is the worst thing that happened in my lifetime.”
The UN says the flooding has affected almost a half-million people across South Sudan since May. Here in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, the Lol river has burst its banks.
This state is usually spared from extreme flooding that plagues the South Sudan states of Jonglei and Unity that border the White Nile and the Sudd marshlands. But now, houses and crops have been swamped.
A new report this week coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization warned of increasing such climate shocks to come across much of Africa, the continent that contributes the least to global warming but will suffer from it most.
In these rural South Sudan communities, shelters of braided grass put up a fragile resistance in a land of seemingly endless water.
In Langic village, Ajou Bol Yel’s family of seven hosted nine neighbors who had lost their homes. The elders sleep outside on beds protected by mosquito nets, while the children share the floor.
In Majak Awar, some 100 families have been displaced twice, in June when homes were flooded and again in August when their shelters were ruined, too.
“I want to leave for Sudan,” whispered Nyibol Arop, a 27-year-old mother of five, as she boiled her morning tea just steps away from the stagnant water that threatens her current shelter.
It is hard to see a stable future when constantly on the move, a lesson learned during the civil war that displaced millions of people before a peace agreement in 2018.
“Floods are not constant. Some people will stay, and some will go,” said Thomas Mapol, a 45-year-old father of nine, as he showed off the destroyed houses of his village near Majak Awar. “But me, I cannot move anywhere. There is no other place that I know.”
In South Sudan, flooding called ‘worst thing in my lifetime’
https://arab.news/gq6xv
In South Sudan, flooding called ‘worst thing in my lifetime’
- This is the third straight year of extreme flooding in South Sudan
- The UN says the flooding has affected almost a half-million people across South Sudan since May
US makes plans to reopen embassy in Syria after 14 years
- The administration has been considering re-opening the embassy since last year
- Trump told reporters on Friday that Al-Sharaa was “doing a phenomenal job” as president
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has informed Congress that it intends to proceed with planning for a potential re-opening of the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria, which was shuttered in 2012 during the country’s civil war.
A notice to congressional committees earlier this month, which was obtained by The Associated Press, informed lawmakers of the State Department’s “intent to implement a phased approach to potentially resume embassy operations in Syria.”
The Feb. 10 notification said that spending on the plans would begin in 15 days, or next week, although there was no timeline offered for when they would be complete or when US personnel might return to Damascus on a full-time basis.
The administration has been considering re-opening the embassy since last year, shortly after longtime strongman Bashar Assad was ousted in December 2024, and it has been a priority for President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack.
Barrack has pushed for a deep rapprochement with Syria and its new leadership under former rebel Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has successfully advocated for the lifting of US sanctions and a reintegration of Syria into the regional and international communities.
Trump told reporters on Friday that Al-Sharaa was “doing a phenomenal job” as president. “He’s a rough guy. He’s not a choir boy. A choir boy couldn’t do it,” Trump said. “But Syria’s coming together.”
Last May, Barrack visited Damascus and raised the US flag at the embassy compound, although the embassy was not yet re-opened.
The same day the congressional notification was sent, Barrack lauded Syria’s decision to participate in the coalition that is combating the Daesh militant group, even as the US military has withdrawn from a small, but important, base in the southeast and there remain significant issues between the government and the Kurdish minority.
“Regional solutions, shared responsibility. Syria’s participation in the D-Daesh Coalition meeting in Riyadh marks a new chapter in collective security,” Barrack said.
The embassy re-opening plans are classified and the State Department declined to comment on details beyond confirming that the congressional notification was sent.
However, the department has taken a similar “phased” approach in its plans to re-open the US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, following the US military operation that ousted former President Nicolás Maduro in January, with the deployment of temporary staffers who would live in and work out of interim facilities.
