Homeless take refuge in Burkina Faso schools

Schoolchildren in Burkina Faso will probably be cramming into overcrowded classrooms when they start their new term. About 60,000 people in the West African country have been left homeless after the heaviest rains in nearly a century. Now with nowhere else to go, most of these people are forced to camp out in primary and secondary schools, according to United Nations figures. No one knows what will happen to them when the new school year starts next month. Teachers are due back at work next week at most of the 88 primary and secondary schools that have been converted into makeshift camps for those driven out of their homes by flooding. "Some people told us we would have to leave the school for another site so that children can come to class, but no one has said when or where and how," Sayouba Ouedraogo, who is sheltering with his family at a school in the capital Ouagadougou, told Reuters news agency. "Those displaced are the poorest of the poor, their homes have been flattened they don't have money to reconstruct, and they do not know what they are going to do," said an aidworker there.

In some camps where up to 1,000 people share a single tap and three toilets, poor water and sanitation could lead to an outbreak of diarrhoeal diseases. "In one site I visited, the water provision system relied on the school's water tank ... so there is a risk of water shortage," Yéréfolo Mallé, said head of the international body, WaterAid in Burkina Faso. But not only do the homeless need somewhere else to live, the country also needs temporary schools for the thousands of displaced children. Even if the government sets up bigger shelters for the homeless elsewhere, the thousands of children that would be living in them will also need temporary to continue their education. It's still raining hard all across West Africa and people are angry that their governments haven't done more to prepare for the rainy season. The floods have affected altogether more than 600,000 people in 16 countries, said the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. And Burkina Faso is among the countries hardest hit.

The United nations has made an emergency appeal for an extra $18.4 million to help the 150,000 people in Burkina Faso. "I hope donors will respond rapidly to help the survivors of these devastating floods, which have hit many people who were desperately poor to begin with," said UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children