NIAMEY, Niger, Aug 23, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Niger's capital Niamey has been
almost completely cut off from the rest of the country by rising floodwater
following the heavy rains that have hit the Sahel region since June.

The main routes out of the city of about 1.5 million are mostly under water,
and about 11,500 of its inhabitants have been affected by the disaster.

Over the past three months, the rains have caused 130 deaths across the
country and affected 250,000 people, according to the military regime that
took power in July 2023.

Niamey, in the southwest of the country, was initially spared, but now canoes
have replaced buses and delivery vans on the roads.

To reach other parts of the country, "you have to take a canoe and hope to
find a vehicle on the other shore," explained Habiboulaye Abdoulaye, a
resident of a suburb totally surrounded by water.

- Dinghies and dykes -

Most transport companies have suspended their routes to the rest of Niger.

Watching a torrent of mud flow on the edge of the city, desperate truck
driver Ali Adamou told AFP his truck had been "engulfed by the waters" along
with four others.

"I was almost killed when a minibus sank," Adamou added.

Along with dilapidated dinghies that charge 500 CFA francs a ride (a little
less than $1), gendarme and military motorboats are helping to transport
stranded residents.

To the east of the capital, French construction group Sogea-Satom is working
to re-open National Route 1, the country's principal highway that runs for
almost 1,500 kilometres (930 miles).

On the banks of the Niger River in Niamey, excavators were at work to raise
the dykes, while volunteers and soldiers rushed around to seal cracks with
sandbags.

The Tera-Niamey highway, the only truck route between the capital and the
north of Burkina Faso, recently reopened.

"The state is doing everything to restore traffic," Colonel Salissou Mahaman
Salissou, the junta's minister of transport, told public television.

The authorities fear that an extended transport interruption will lead to
shortages, especially of fuel.