Residents of Ebo town, a community that is usually prone to flooding during the wet season, are worried that they would continue to lose their valuable assets to floods. They expressed this worry yesterday as this reporter visited the area to assess the initiatives undertaken by the residents to combat any possible flooding this year.

Having experienced two terrible floods that exposed the community to diseases like cholera, malaria and unhygienic living conditions, in the past years, the desperate looking residents did not hide the fact that the heavy runoff water that flows through the community to the river is affecting their environment adversely. The area that suffers most and is highly vulnerable to floods is the low-lying zone that is close to the river, locally known as "Farokono". As this reporter walked down Kaur road, a street severely hit by floods in the past,  residents of the area bared their minds on their predicament. "Our major problem here is water, I wish you come here when it rains to see for yourself what the water does to our compounds, all the water from Jeshwang comes through here and goes to a place called 'Gage Mbam'. That place is too small to contain the water because it is a swampy area and not a river and when that swamps fills up, the only home for the water is our houses," said a woman who declined to mention her name.

She continued: "Sometimes the stagnant water would form spirogyra and when the water level is high, there would be fish in that filthy water, our children would play in that water to catch those fish, this is unhygienic, that is why we do have the cholera that they are talking about, you cannot direct all the water in the community to pass through this small street, we are really appealing to the government to assist us with more gutters."

Another woman pointed out that the women suffer the most when the place gets flooded, because they are the ones who remain in the compound with the children; she added that they do endeavour to control the children but at times the little ones dodge and play in the dirty water. "We often suffer the most when it rains and our children should go to school, mothers have to come out and lift their children from the water; what even makes the situation more frustrating is that majority of us are vendors, that is where we earn our living and take care of our children. But during the rainy season, due to this unfavourable condition, we cannot sell our goods and this makes life very difficult for us," she lamented.

 Many other inhabitants of Ebo Town told the same story. They also decried the use of the community as a dumping ground and called for an immediate end to this as health and hygiene are fundamental in human life.The Ebo Town Ward councilor, Momodou Lamin Badjie said the problem of flooding in the area cannot be solved easily since the settlement of people has blocked the waterways. He however, explained that they have taken it upon themselves to minimise the impact of the floods. "We have established a disaster management committee and a health and environment committee, these committees are capacitated and equipped to respond to disaster and as well as sensitise the people on health issues particularly good sanitation," he said.

 He went on to state that the committees have been very efficient and able to reduce the damage often caused by the floods since they were established. According to him, since the commencement of the local initiative campaign, they were able to assist 90% of the flood victims while the remaining 10% were later assisted. He also seized the opportunity to congratulate all the partners and donor agencies particularly the president of the Republic and the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) for their invaluable support.

Speaking to this paper via telephone  on his way from the Upper River Region where  downpours recently washed away houses in some villages, Essa Khan, executive director of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) while admitting that Ebo Town is a problem, pointed out that the agency also has other critical areas to attend to. He added that as far as the community is concerned, the KMC is aware of the problem and is making great efforts to mitigate it. He explained that the government is working on a central draining system for the Greater Banjul Area, so the problem of Ebo Town would soon be solved.

The NDMA boss also promised that they will continue to increase sanitation and resource mobilisation where necessary for the community in the quest to mitigate their problem. When asked what is responsible for the perpetual flooding in Ebo Town, he replied that the problem is simply poor settlement due to urbanisation. "Due to rural-urban migration, the populace have increased and people settled in areas beyond the government identified settlement areas; they went into the swamps and this is causing all these problems," he pointed out.