Floods, drug trade threaten West Africa

from Reuters Alert Net

West Africa is experiencing it's second year of flooding. That along with drug trafficking make the poverty situation that much harder to solve. - Kale

By Doug Palmer

GENEVA - A second year of severe flooding and a growing threat to regional stability from drug trafficking are compounding problems of poverty in West Africa, a United Nations official said on Thursday.

Last year, floods disrupted the lives of 800,000 people in 14 West African countries and left 210 dead, as well as destroying crops and killing livestock, said D. Herve Ludovic de Lys, head of the West Africa regional office for the U.N. humanitarian affairs agency OCHA.

"Those people have barely recovered from the floods of last year and once again, they are experiencing a very heavy rainy season," Ludovic de Lys said in a briefing for reporters.

Floods have killed 30 people so far this year, and damaged the lives of 50,000 with another 45 days of heavy rain still expected, Ludovic de Lys said.

Recent flooding in Togo has affected 10,000 people, destroyed 400 houses and severed nine bridges, including some on the main trade road to Burkina Faso, he said.

Six are dead from floods in Mali's capital, he said.

The second year of flooding in a region otherwise experiencing a slow onset drought comes at time of high international food and energy prices that has made life more difficult for many developing countries.

A rise in illegal cocaine flows through West Africa from production centers in Latin America to markets in Europe and the Gulf region poses another threat, he said.

"This is a concern for us because West Africa is just emerging from period where we had very violent conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire. We ... are very concerned because this drug trafficking could fuel conflicts, could bring back weapons," Ludovic de Lys said.

All of this makes this week's setback at world trade talks more difficult for West Africa. Talks collapsed before there was even any discussion of regional cotton producer demands for sharp cuts in U.S. and European Union cotton subsides.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Benin say those subsidies are destroying their cotton industries by encouraging excess U.S. and EU production that flood export markets.

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