admin

At least 100 people have been killed after flooding in parts of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

According to Associated Press, Prime Minister Jean-Michel Lukonde said a search was ongoing for more bodies.

Earlier on Tuesday, the death toll had stood at 50 according to Sylvano Kasongo, Kinshasa’s police head, Reuters reported.

“We are already at around fifty deaths and that is not yet final,” Kasongo was quoted as saying at the time.

According to him, the rains caused landslides and roads to submerge.

Images shared online showed entire neighbourhoods flooded with muddy water and roads ripped apart by sinkholes.

One video appeared to show a major highway cut in half by a giant hole that had swallowed several vehicles in Mont-Ngafula district.

In a statement on Tuesday, Félix-Antoine Tshilombo, DRC’s president, extended his condolences to the families.

“The Head of State, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo learned, with great sorrow, of the death of several people including children, following the torrential rains which fell on Kinshasa, in the night from Monday to Tuesday,” the statement reads.

“The Head of State presents his most heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families, asks the national and provincial governments to come to their aid and speed up the rainwater drainage works to prevent this type of disaster from happening again.”

This is not the first time DRC’s capital will be hit by floods.
In 2019, at least 39 people died when torrential rain flooded low-lying districts, and some buildings and roads collapsed.

Kinshasa, once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, is now one of the world’s fastest growing megacities.

However, its geographical location has made it vulnerable to seasonal flash floods.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), many people are expected to be prevented from applying for asylum in the UK under the new strategy the country has adopted to combat illegal immigration.

Tuesday saw the release of a new strategy by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for dealing with the influx of unauthorized immigrants coming to the country by boat over the English Channel.

The UNHCR stated the strategy basically justified the blanket rejection of asylum applications from applicants arriving from nations or by routes not regarded “safe” by London after assessing a number of its components.

“The announced proposal to first detain, and then either return asylum-seekers to their home countries or transfer them to a third country would amount to a denial of access to the UK asylum system for those who arrive irregularly.

“That approach would close down access to asylum in the UK for all but a few,” UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs said in a statement on Tuesday.

In late November, the media reported that just 8,000 of the 52,294 asylum seekers who entered the UK had received a decision on their applications, while the remaining 44,700 had not received a response.