IOM concerned over devastating climate change and migration patterns in South Sudan

IOM Deputy Director General Amy Pope addressing the press in Juba on 25 February 2022. [Photo: Radio Tamazuj]

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has raised concerns over the devastating impacts of climate change on local communities in parts of South Sudan. 

The IOM Deputy Director General Amy Pope visited the country last week and went to flood-affected parts of South Sudan including Bentiu town which has been badly hit by the floods. 

IOM says the migration pattern of the communities from their original homelands to high areas affects the normal way of life of people and livestock in South Sudan. 

Speaking to journalists during a press conference on Friday, the IOM Deputy Director General Amy Pope said the effects of climate change in South Sudan have left marks of mystery in people's lives. 

"The reason I wanted to come here, in particular, is because here in South Sudan there is a really, really impact of climate change and migration. And it is compounded because of the very fragile situation that we still have in South Sudan," Pope said. "We have hundreds of thousands of people displaced already by conflict and they can not go back home and often living in the IDP camps and that is being compounded really quite significantly by floods." 

Amy Pope urged the government of South Sudan to begin investing in infrastructure to prevent the devastating effects of floods situation.

"It is critical that we start really investing in infrastructure now. We urge the government to become really involved in that because we as IOM can be ready to assist them, but also it is about the government investing in the solutions, investing in the people, ensuring that the communities there have gotten the training they all need to help them manage the water. We IOM are going to be part of that, but it has to come from the government and the community," she added.

Parts of Unity, Upper Nile, Jonglei, and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area have been badly affected by the floods in the country.