Pain of children displaced by floods

In the heart of the bustling Kisumu city, hidden behind makeshift walls and patched-up roofs lies a world often concealed from the public eye — an evacuation centre.

Here, children remain resilient in the face of uncertainty. The centre, meant to be a temporary shelter for families displaced by natural disasters or conflicts, has become the backdrop for countless childhoods.

In Nduru village, tents fill an open field. The vast land, which was once used for tilling rice, is now an evacuation camp for flood victims.

Our moment of soaking in the dire situation that many families are forced to live in due to floods is momentarily disrupted when playful children zoom by. Their innocent faces point to minors who have grown numb to the harsh environment, thanks to the changing climate.

Families in this region are constantly migrating to safer grounds due to floods, sometimes being hosted in crowded evacuation centres.

Their life is similar to that of pastoralists who move in search of pasture. The only difference is that they move in search of better shelter. However, they can only set up temporary structures that lack important amenities such as sanitation facilities.

Cause of the flooding

The region’s mid-seasonal flooding is often caused by either River Nyando bursting its banks or the backflow of Lake Victoria. 

Benta (not her real name) is among hundreds of children who have had to relocate from their home not once, not twice but several times in search of a comfortable shelter after her parent’s house was submerged.

She recalls that the swelling waters of the freshwater lake forced them to move out of their home in May.

At first, they moved to a neighbour’s home but when her house also got flooded, they had to flee to an evacuation centre, a couple of kilometres away.

“My friends also had to leave to higher grounds with their families while some relocated permanently,” says Benta.

At the evacuation centre, she joined hundreds of other children and their families. The fact that she had to share a single-room tented house with all her five siblings and parents did not make the situation any better.

She later learnt that her school, Oseth Primary, had also been submerged and their learning materials swept into the lake.

Two other primary schools within Kadhiambo sub-location —  Nyamrundu and Odienya — were also submerged.

“Our parents were informed that we had to move Nduru MHM Primary School, which is more than two kilometres away from our evacuation centre, to begin term two studies,” says Benta.

Term two began on May 13, with learners from Nyamrundu, Odienya and Oseth primary schools sharing the same school compound.

When Healthy Nation visited the learners on July 24, a school uniform used as a unique identifier to a particular school had almost lost meaning. During the short breaks between lessons, the playground was a cocktail of at least four different school uniforms.

At lunch break, the learners maintained happy faces, while others rushed homes to grab a meal. Some were queuing to sip water, which was their only ‘meal’.

“Most of our learners are forced to stay here during the lunch break because there is nothing for them to eat at home,” says Nduru MHM School headteacher George Aringo.

Mr Aringo says several learners from the four schools have learnt to survive on water, which is always made available as early as 6.30am.

The school head, however, expresses concern that despite the learners striving to attend school daily, most of them fall asleep in the classroom.

“We realised that most of them come to school on empty stomachs. Shortly into the day, quite a number are always hungry and tired, and it is like they find solace in sleep,” he says.

The headteacher explains that the learners from the three schools moved to Nduru MHM School following a directive from the sub-county education director.

Currently, the institution's population is 1,380, more than four times the original number which stood at 372 before calamity struck.

“We had to devise ways to survive. Some of our coping mechanisms included erecting two old tents, renovating some of the unused rooms, while the learners were also divided into two streams,” says Mr Aringo adding that they recently received a donation of two tents from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef).

High population

Despite the measures, the school population remains overwhelmingly high, with a single classroom hosting up to 150 learners.

He says for a comfortable; learning environment, the learners need to be divided into three streams.

At least two teachers are required to take the learners through a single lesson. Mr Aringo explains that before the merger, the classrooms would host a maximum of 45 to 60 learners. To ensure learning continues, five learners are forced to sit on a single desk designed to carry three learners. The crowded classrooms, he says, have been one of the major causes of recurring communicable diseases.

“Throughout term two, we have recorded many cases of learners with running noses and coughs,” says Mr Aringo. He adds that some learners have developed skin rashes, saying seating in squeezed spaces is to blame.

Some have also been frequenting the nearby Nyang’ande health facility seeking medication for stomach pain. “Every day we excuse at least four learners to seek medical attention at the health facility. There are some who also fail to come to school only for us to learn that they are unwell.

“We usually send those who are unwell home. Sadly, most of them never seek medical attention due to their humble backgrounds.”

A junior staff at Nyang’ande health facility says most of the learners are normally diagnosed with malaria, skin infections, stomach infections, bilharzia and dysentery.

Within the school compound are 11-door pit latrines that serve the 1,380 learners. This has been a threat to sanitation.

With the long queues, most of the learners always end up getting to class late. Others, especially those in lower classes, are forced to relieve themselves outside the latrines, posing a risk to their health.

The school’s board chairman Hezekiah Ogai says the institution needs at least 30 latrines to comfortably accommodate the learners.

This, he says, should be an emergency intervention since the situation is not likely to change in the coming school term.

“Two out of the three schools are still completely submerged while the water levels in one of the schools have been subsiding. The earliest the learners can move back to their institutions is January next year,” says Mr Ogai.

Back in the villages that are already dry, the lands lay bare with nothing to feed starving families.

Over the years, the residents’ major economic activity has been fishing and farming.

Mr Dan Ojuando, born and raised in Nyando, explains that the first case of the lake backflow in the area was recorded in 1962 and 1963.

The incident, he says, left households submerged for months before the water levels subsided.

In 2019, there was yet another major backflow, with the number of the affected people increasing.

Mr Ojuando says several farmlands were swallowed by the water, livestock drowned while residents contracted waterborne diseases.

Learners from Kandaria Primary and Ombaka Mixed Secondary were forced to spend weeks at home while their schools remained submerged. Months later, the government put up a new learning institution on a higher land for the affected schools.

“After the 2019 flooding incident, we had hoped that it would take another five decades to recur, but we were wrong. In March this year, the water levels began to rise yet again,” says Mr Ojuando.

He adds that most of the farmlands are still submerged.

Mr Ojuando, whose four children study at Nduru MHM School, says the young ones are among those bearing the brunt of the lake backflow.

“Most families can barely afford a decent meal, pay school fees, or even take the children to the hospital whenever they fall sick.”

Before the calamity struck, he would pay Sh3,200 for each of his children for a school lunch programme. He would raise the money from either fishing or farm produce, but this is no longer possible after he relocated to higher grounds, tens of kilometres from the lake; while his farm remains submerged.

“The parents stopped paying the meal fees and as a school, we can no longer sustain the feeding programme. It also hurts when teachers attending the afternoon classes know very well that the learners had nothing for lunch,” says the head teacher.

Mr Oringo adds that water supply in the school has not been stable due to the large population, with the learners depending on the school tank that was initially designed to serve 372 learners.

Mr Oringo further laments that due to the frequent flooding, a number of teachers avoided being employed in the school while their calls to have the sub-county gazetted as a hardship area failed to materialise.

Mr Evans Gichana, Kisumu County Director of Climate Change, says the lake backflow is a result of a number of factors including extreme weather conditions such as prolonged rainfall.

He also cites siltation of the lake due to the inflow of solid deposits. In this case, during the heavy rains, the lake can no longer sustain the large volume of water and it thus pours out. Mr Gichana explains that the backflow has had massive effects on the communities bordering the lake within Kisumu County, especially Kanyagwal and Ogenya locations.

In May this year, Unicef revealed that landslides and flooding had affected almost one million people in Eastern Africa.

The affected countries included Kenya, Somalia, Burundi and Tanzania. The situation further exacerbated the lives of women and children who already face high levels of discrimination, vulnerability to violence, abuse and exploitation.

The heavy rains and subsequent floods disrupted lives, posing significant risks to children in the affected regions.

According to the global body, children are more vulnerable than adults. They are physically less able to withstand and survive hazards such as floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves and are physiologically more vulnerable to toxic substances such as lead and other forms of pollution. In Kisumu County, Mr Gichana says climate change has had a number of effects on children including their mental wellness, malnutrition, cutting off young learners from school, separation from friends and loved ones, diseases, teen pregnancies and early marriages.

According to Unicef, children in Africa are among the most at risk of the impacts of climate change but are woefully neglected by the key climate financing flows required to help them adapt, survive and respond to the climate crisis.

On August 6, Unicef launched a report revealing that about 12 million children face climate and disaster risks in Kenya.

The report said that about 2.4 million children live in counties with very high levels of risk to climate and environmental shocks.

The global children advocacy body also revealed that approximately nine million children in the country are exposed to droughts and water scarcity, 1.3 million are exposed to flood risks, and over 10  million to malaria risk.

Unfortunately, less than 2.4 per cent of climate financing globally is channelled to children-centred interventions, according to the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative coalition 2023 report titled “Falling Short”.

Mr Gichana says some of the remedies to Lake Victoria’s backflow are educating those living in the highlands to make use of the water sources to reduce the impact downstream and desolation of the lake.

He adds that once completed, Koru Soin Dam, a national government’s project, will also help mitigate the seasonal floods.

The locals have also proposed the construction of dykes along the lake, de-siltation of the lake, and planting of indigenous and bamboo trees on the banks of rivers emptying their water into the lake.

“Other remedies directly related to children include introducing guidance and counselling in schools to help the flood victims recover, building hostels in evacuation centres for the young boys and girls and introducing digital learning for classes to continue,” says Mr Gichana.

While the locals wait for the long-term solution to the lake backflow, Pamela Otieno, one of the parents of learners in the affected schools, can only hope that the government or an NGO will intervene and support the learners with a feeding programme.

She has also appealed to organisations to help establish a mobile clinic in the school, where the learners can be seeking medical services.

“We also hope that one day well-wishers will support us to build a boarding section within the school, which  the learners can call home in case of calamity,” says Mr Aringo.

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