20100810
reuters

DAKAR (Reuters) - Seasonal flooding has killed almost 100 people across West Africa, destroyed thousands of homes, encouraged the spread of disease and threatens to worsen a food crisis by washing away farmland, aid groups said on Tuesday.

Millions of people are without food in the Sahel region, which runs south of the Sahara desert, after droughts last year depleted stocks.

The region depends upon October harvests which need rain, but heavier-than-normal downpours are counterproductive because they can break the planting cycle and ruin farmland in Chad and Niger, the countries worst affected by shortages.

"Rain in the Sahel is much welcome but it needs to be properly distributed over time and over space which is the major issue now," said Naouar Labidi, the U.N. World Food Programme's regional food security adviser.

The river Niger burst its banks at the weekend, destroying hectares of vegetable gardens and rice fields and displacing at least 5,000 people around the capital Niamey, the U.N office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said in a report.

Another 20,000 are at risk of displacement in the event of further heavy rains, which could make life even tougher.

"The nutritional situation is becoming much worse than last year," said a report by aid agency USAID and Famine Early Warning Systems Network released on Tuesday. In some regions, cases of acute malnutrition had doubled since 2009, it said.