South Sudan families battle rising Nile floods to survive

Here in the Akuak islands, families survive on their own through fishing, and spend hours every day maintaining their islands.

The huts are located along one of the countless channels formed by the Nile in this giant swamp.

There’s nothing but water, grass and papyrus in this area called toich in Dinka language.

According to the Norwegian Foreign Policy Institute: “South Sudan is a hotspot of flood risk. Its population is very exposed to seasonal riverine floods, which have become increasingly severe.”

Its researchers say: “Whereas flood waters have historically receded during the November to January dry season, years of consecutive and record-breaking flooding have permanently changed the landscape."

Some climate experts believe higher sea-surface temperatures provoking heavier rainfall in East-Africa could cause the permanent expansion of the Sudd, the largest wetland in Africa, stretching in the Nile’s floodplain in South Sudan, north of Bor.

Unlike other people in Jonglei state, the Akuak have adapted to surviving here.

Flooding chased away others with their cattle in 2020, but the Akuak had already started to adapt.

Like all Dinka communities the Akuak used to keep cattle, but they stopped in the late 1980s because of rising water levels.

According to their traditional leader, chief Makech Kuol Kuany they chose their land over their cattle, and turned to fishing.

Anyeth Manyang explains: “When the water level rises, we use grass and soil in order to build these islands and this is what we have been doing since I was born. My father and my mother taught me how to build these islands and how to fish.”

South Sudan is considered the 7th most vulnerable country to climate change globally.

This year alone, over 375,000 people were displaced by flooding in the East-African nation according to UNOCHA, the agency within the UN which coordinates aid for natural disasters. No one knows when water will subside.

Ayen Deng Duot has six children.

She and her whole family are also trying to expand the spongy plant and clay platform their home rests on.

But climate change is turning this indigenous lifestyle into an existential battle against water, as South Sudan experiences catastrophic flooding for the sixth year in a row.

“We are doing this every year, because we are staying in a low land. So whenever the water rises with the flooding from the Nile or from rain water, we have to do this to protect ourselves, so that we are not chased away by water,” says Ayen Deng Duot.

She's not convinced her family will thrive in the city.

Some in the community still hope the water will recede so that they can recover dry land and grow crops again.

Chief Kuany is optimistic that the current level of water could eventually go down - it's what happened during the historical flooding that hit the region in the 1960s and lasted for almost a decade.

But the past couple of years have been extremely testing and Kuany estimates 2,000 of the Akuak people are persevering on the islands here.

Fishing is central to the communities existence, it feeds families and livestock.