GITEGA December 7th (ABP) – Seventy-six houses in the Mukoro and Mwurire villages of Bugendana commune destroyed by heavy rain mixed with hail on November 7, 2018, require urgent help in iron sheets or tarpaulins to help the affected people find shelters.
The governor of Gitega, Mr. Venant Manirambona, who opened the meeting, invited the development partners to help the affected households. He also asked the members of the Risk Prevention Platform to analyze the appropriate strategies for preventing or mitigating potential risks related to the effects of climate change.These emergency aid needs were expressed by the members of the Gitega Provincial Disaster Prevention and Disaster Management Platform (PPRC) and development partners at a meeting held at the premises of the Burundi Red Cross, branch of Gitega (center), on Monday. Eighty students need urgent help with school equipment to replace those which have been damaged in those weather-damaged homes. Ninety households from the three villages, Bitare, Mukoro and Mwurire whose banana, maize, cassava and coffee fields were damaged by those hazards need food aid, they reported. The Ministry of Human Rights, Social Affairs and Gender has already donated 25 kg of rice and 15 kg of beans but other food aid is still needed, said the advisor of the communal administrator of Bugendana in charge of administrative and social affairs.
As for urgent aid, the Burundi Red Cross, branch of Gitega, has promised to distribute soon tarpaulins that would serve temporally while waiting for finding iron sheets. She also promised blankets and kitchen utensils. The NGO MIPAREC has promised the transport of those aids. Other stakeholders such as WFP, CARE International, and ODAG have requested a quantitative identification of emergency aid needs to be able to intervene.
As for mitigation actions, they recommended drawing counter lines on watersheds, planting fixing grasses and agro-forestry trees, and maintaining existing counter lines.
