At least 60 people died in eastern Sudan when the Arbaat dam, 40 kilometers north of Port Sudan, collapsed and caused several homes to be flooded, a non-governmental organization (NGO) announced today.
‘At least 60 people drowned and dozens are missing after the collapse of the Arbaat dam in eastern Sudan, which had a capacity of 25 million cubic meters of water,’ Mohamed Adrub, vice-president of the Red Crescent in the country, told the Spanish news agency EFE.
The figures put forward by this humanitarian NGO are much higher than the official figures, since, according to the US news agency Associated Press (AP), the Ministry of Health announced the death of only four people, without saying how many are missing, but several local media put the death toll at at least 60, plus those who were swept away in the torrent and are still missing.
A local official told the Sudanese website Al-Tagheer that there must be at least 60 dead, and the governor in charge of natural resource management confirmed that the damage ‘is extensive’, but without giving any figures.
According to the Medameek news portal, quoted by AP, more than 100 people are missing, in addition to the inhabitants who climbed the hills to escape the force of the waters.
The dam is 40 kilometers north of Port Sudan, the city to which many of the country’s main rulers have fled in the wake of the war between the armed forces and the paramilitary forces known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The dam’s water reservoir provided drinking water and helped the city manage flooding during the monsoons, but collapsed on Saturday night following heavy rainfall.
The war in the country has severely disrupted civilian infrastructure and an already fragile health system, killing thousands and creating the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with more than ten million people forced to flee their homes, two million of them to neighboring countries.
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