A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Waters Receed but Flood Threat Remains, August 15, 2007

August 15, 2007, Nepalgunj: For the second year in succession, southwestern Nepal was hit hard by seasonal flooding. Banke and Bardiya Districts were the most affected and both saw thousands of people displaced from their homes. In rural villages homes and roads were destroyed while the district capitals Nepalgunj and Ghuleriya were both shut down completely for more than a week as they were inundated with water. Local residents have said that the last two years’ floods have been the worst of their lifetimes.

Flood victims who lost or fled their homes were housed for as long as a week in schools and other public buildings. During the first three days the government and INGOs could provide little relief. It was left to local NGOs to try and arrange for food and water for the thousands of displaced persons. COCAP member People Centered Development Forum (PCDF) led the effort to feed the flood victims in Ghuleriya. During last years floods PCDF had gone door to door to collect funds for flood relief. This year they had money reserved for this purpose. For several days they fed and provided clean drinking water to more than a thousand victims. Eventually the government of Nepal and larger INGOs organized themselves to take over the efforts to aid these victims.

While the efforts of the government to offer relief to the victims is to be commended, PCDF president Depak Bhatterai is quick to point out that “all of their efforts are aimed at relief, but every year the same problem arises, until the government creates a policy of prevention the same problem will reoccur.”

While the government of Nepal has publicly blamed mismanagement of water by dams in India, the Indian government has blamed Nepal for the regions citing the same reason, mismanagement of water. Neither government has taken responsibility for its citizens and made concrete moves to solve the problem for future monsoons. In Nepal it is widely known that deforestation has been one factor that has contributed to the intensification of flooding in recent years, yet no official policy has been put into effect to solve this problem.

While COCAP is not an NGO concentrated on disaster relief, the problems presented by these floods do raise issues of human rights. Included in a persons rights must be the right to livelihood, and furthermore the expectation that your government will work to protect that right. For the government of Nepal to neglect its responsibilities and fail to work towards a comprehensive flood prevention plan is a violation of the basic rights of its citizens. Local COCAP members have been quick to point out this out and are poised to lead a call for improved government policy relating to flood prevention and relief efforts.

Two weeks since the floods began, life is slowly returning to normal in southwestern Nepal. Water levels have receded and stores have reopened. Villagers have been able to return to their homes in order to salvage what they can and rebuild. Many are still living in tents made from blue tarps provided by the Red Cross as they wait for the waters to clear enough for reconstruction.

In Nepalgunj eroded roads and huge piles of refuse left by the flood waters remain to remind residents of the 11 days they spent without electricity wading through several feet of water even on the largest roads. With each heavy rain, the city and the region braces for the possibility that the flood waters will return and threaten their homes again. Until the government is able to create a concrete and effective flood prevention policy, as well as make plans for faster relief, these fears and tensions will remain as the threat of the floods will stay in local residents’ minds for this and every monsoon for years to come.