Africa

South Sudan shuts schools in face of extreme heat

Temperatures exceed 40 degrees in country where climate change has ‘amplified’ impact

A general view of an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Bentiu, South Sudan. Climate change has aggravated displacement in the country. Photograph: Luke Dray/Getty Images

Sally Hayden
Mon Mar 18 2024 - 19:00

South Sudan’s schools closed on Monday as a result of an extreme heatwave that has seen temperatures topping 40 degrees and is expected to last for two weeks.

Parents have been advised to keep their children indoors, with the health and education ministries saying they “will continue to monitor the situation and inform the public accordingly”.

The landlocked east African country of roughly 11 million has also struggled with extreme flooding in recent years.

“This is yet another a sign of how climate change is impacting children in South Sudan,” said Pornpun Rabiltossaporn, the South Sudan country director for international humanitarian organisation Save the Children. “Already 70 per cent – or 2.8 million children – [are] out of school here and now the schools are closing in this heatwave. More needs to be done collectively to ensure adaptation and resilience to these climate emergencies that are becoming more and more frequent and hitting children the hardest.”

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South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011, plunged into years of civil war in 2013. More than 400,000 people are thought to have died. The latest peace deal was agreed in 2018, and the country is scheduled to hold elections by the end of this year, though various prerequisites have still not been met.

Global think tank the Crisis Group called South Sudan a “prime example” of a fragile state where stresses and displacement related to climate change have an “amplified” impact because “political instability and poor governance undermine climate resilience, impede humanitarian support and pave the way for communal friction”.

According to Unicef, between 750,000 and more than one million people are affected by flooding each year.

In 2021, less than 8 per cent of South Sudan’s population had access to electricity, according to World Bank figures. About 70 per cent do not have access to basic healthcare. About 9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with about 56 per cent of the country’s population expected to face acute food insecurity levels during the lean season between April to July 2024.

More than 110 million people on the African continent were directly affected by weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2022, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its latest annual report.

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“Africa is responsible for less than 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it is the continent which is the least able to cope with the negative impacts of climate change. Heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, tropical cyclones, and prolonged droughts are having devastating impacts on communities and economies, with increasing numbers of people at risk,” said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas. Most figures put Africa’s contribution to global emissions at 4 per cent or less.

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Sally Hayden

Sally Hayden

Sally Hayden, a contributor to The Irish Times, reports on Africa

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