Flash floods affect 500,000 South Sudanese - UN

By Mary Harper

About 500,000 people have been affected by flash floods in South Sudan, the UN says.

Nearly half the counties in the country were under water, with torrential rains causing rivers to burst their banks, it added.

President Salva Kiir said his property in his home village was submerged and that it was time for South Sudanese to work together to solve the humanitarian crisis instead of fighting.

The UN says tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the floods; their homes, livestock and crops destroyed.

South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is trying to recover from a brutal civil war, which erupted not long after it gained independence from Sudan a decade ago.

This article originally appeared in BBC News.

Photo: AFP