TOGO FLOODING: SITUATION IN THE SOUTH

UNCLAS LOME 000399


DEPT FOR AF
AIR/W FOR OFDA
DAKAR FOR OFDA
ACCRA FOR USAID AND DATT

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID PREL SENV TO
SUBJECT: TOGO FLOODING: SITUATION IN THE SOUTH

REF: LOME 397


1. Summary. During travels around the southernmost portion
of Togo over the week-end, it was clear that water levels are
declining (except as water rushes toward the mouth of the Zio
River at the ocean). The land is beginning to dry out, with
deep mud the rule. Rains in the south have become spottier
or absent. Agencies have been trying to assist those
displaced by the flooding, bringing in food to people
sheltering in schools and handing out supplies, though more
of the latter are badly needed, particularly mosquito nets.
End Summary.


2. Almost all of the eastern side of the city of Lome has
been affected by the flooding since it began July 30. Even
though the northeasternmost quarter, Kegue, is some 6-7 kms.
from the Zio River, water levels remained too high to travel
very far, and the same was true in other neighborhoods in
this very flat area as one moved toward the Atlantic. Close
to the ocean along the edge of the suburbs and neighboring
villages from Lome toward the Beninese border, water has
invariably flooded those areas closest to the Zio.


3. Many residents in the affected areas have moved into local
schools, others staying with neighbors living on higher
ground. A consistent complaint has been the amount of theft
occurring in unoccupied homes at night, even to the point
where the metal roofing and window frames are being removed.
We encountered one woman in the neighborhood of Adakpame who
had just waded through the water to her home to discover that
all her corn -- the staple food of southern Togo -- had been
stolen, and she wailed as she held up her empty basin.


4. The good news is that, at least in the greater Lome area,
services are being provided to the internally displaced
people (IDPs). We generally found government health and
social welfare personnel, as well as Togolese Red Cross
representatives and police and/or gendarmes at IDP locations,
though services were slower in getting organized as one moved
away from Lome and closer to the Beninese border, a situation
we were told would be remedied August 4. Health cadres were
concerned over the number of people turning up with malaria,
diarrhea, and parasites, as well as the poor to no drinking
water available and the poor to nonexistent latrines. Social
welfare cadre were trucking food in for people to eat and
distributing a few very basic necessities. The Red Cross was
responsible for counting the IDPs and for assisting the most
vulnerable. Particularly impressive was a large IDP center
of 2,500 people (and growing) from six villages east of Lome
in Baguida, where services were humming, the gendarmes having
brought in both a large tank of drinking water and a mobile
dispensary in addition to the local health service
facilities, and social welfare providing meals.


5. With stagnant water lying around close to all the IDP
centers, a common complaint was of the mosquito population
and the need for mosquito nets. More supplies of sleeping
mats and other basics are needed urgently.


6. We also traveled virtually across Togo from near the
border with Benin westward through the medium-sized town of
Tsevie, some 35 kms. north of Lome on the north-south highway
and widely said in Lome to be completely cut off from the
world, to the town of Keve close to Ghana. This entailed
crossing both the swollen rivers responsible for the
flooding, the Haho on the eastern side and the Zio on the
western. Bridges over both were intact, and water was
clearly going down on the rivers. Roads, though badly
rutted, were beginning to dry out, and traffic was moving on
them.


7. There has clearly been crop damage in the areas we
visited, both around Lome and up country. How much it will
affect the food supply is uncertain, though prices have
definitely been rising. One group of farmers 20 kms. west of
Tsevie whose farms are close to the Zio said their fields had
been covered by water higher than a nearby tree in mid-week.
As of August 2, they were still in a meter of water. The
farmers saw no hope for their crops of corn and manioc,
though they thought they could replant corn during the small
rains that should arrive in another 45 days or so. We were
sceptical of the claim of water having been so high until
traveling past the Zio and seeing fields well up on high
banks completely swept by the current and still standing in
water.


8. Comment. Services to IDPs in the Lome area are being
provided surprisingly well, and improving. Many more basic
supplies are needed, and the Embassy is submitting a disaster
declaration (septel) to help pay for them. Authorities are
announcing that people in other, more remote areas farther
inland are now also receiving attention. Humanitarian needs
appear to be receiving just priority as the GOT wrestles with
the more difficult problem of how to replace or repair Togo's
affected bridges.


TWINING