Ghana floods: ‘My entire farm is under the water and so is my house’

Awusife Kagbitor paces anxiously on a dry patch of land overlooking her collapsed and completely submerged three-bedroom home in Mepe in Ghana's Volta Region.

Her fate is shared by nearly 26,000 others, displaced by floods caused by the controlled spillage of excess water from the Akosombo and Kpong hydro-electric dams near the southern tip of Lake Volta.Ghana has been experiencing unpredictable rainfall patterns for months now, which many scientists say is the result of climate change.

The Akosombo and Kpong Dams generate about a third of Ghana's energy mix. Authorities say they will reduce the rate of spillage of the dams while monitoring the volume of water upstream. The dam has subsequently been spilled when needed, with limited impact on communities. However, this year's flooding is one of the worst to hit the more than 100 communities living downstream since the dam's creation.The National Disaster Management Organisation estimates that eight districts have been affected since the flooding started on Wednesday 11 October.

"There are about 15 communities in the lower Volta basin. Eight of them have been greatly affected, farmlands have been washed away, so economic activities have been greatly affected. We are feeling bad, our livelihood has been taken away, this is not how we live," said Mr Borlor.

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