Severe Flooding in South Sudan Displaces More Than 600,000

Children are seen near flood water from the broken dykes on Nile river, in Duk padiet county, Jonglei State | © Reuters/DENIS DUMO
Children are seen near flood water from the broken dykes on Nile river, in Duk padiet county, Jonglei State | © Reuters/DENIS DUMO
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Severe Flooding in South Sudan Displaces More Than 600,000

Children are seen near flood water from the broken dykes on Nile river, in Duk padiet county, Jonglei State | © Reuters/DENIS DUMO
Children are seen near flood water from the broken dykes on Nile river, in Duk padiet county, Jonglei State | © Reuters/DENIS DUMO

Severe flooding in South Sudan has forced more than 600,000 people to flee their homes since July, the United Nations said, after months of torrential rains caused the Nile to burst its banks.

The impoverished East African nation is struggling to recover from a five-year civil war and was already suffering severe food shortages.

Scientists say the unusual rains are caused by a cyclical weather pattern that has been exacerbated by climate change.

The coronavirus pandemic is also complicating the response, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan Alain Noudéhou. Costs for delivering aid have risen with the need to protect aid workers and families are forced to squeeze together on thin slivers of land.

"With the flooding, people had to move to higher ground and there´s not much higher ground," he said on Thursday during a visit to flood-hit areas.

He said the UN had allocated $10 million to help flood victims, but needed $40 million more by the end of the year.

Around him, families waded through water or tried to herd bedraggled chickens away from sodden piles of belongings.

Kok Manyok, 70, said he was sleeping under the trees after fleeing from his village Dorok in August with his grandchildren.

"The water level reached almost halfway up my body," told Reuters, motioning to his chest as he spoke in his native Dinka language. "There are no shelters for me and my grandchildren, our cattle are gone and we are sleeping under a tree."

Families were living off of leaves and sorghum, said Matthew Hollingworth, the country director of the UN's World Food Program (WFP).

"That is not enough to keep them healthy and fit," he said. Some food was due to be distributed next month but there was not enough to go round, he said.

South Sudan´s civil war erupted two years after the country won its independence from Sudan in 2011 and ended with a peace deal signed between the main parties in 2018. But not all armed groups signed the deal and low-level clashes, banditry, and attacks on aid workers continue.

The conflict displaced around a third of the 12 million population, creating the worst refugee crisis in Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.



Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law".

The university's board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".

The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.

The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.

Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities".

The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".

Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.

The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation".

It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations," it added.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing Palestine as a "sovereign and independent state".

It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza -- charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.

In December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".