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Feature Story

Uganda: Illegal river sand miners boost rising flood risk

26 July 2022
Topic Flood.
Country Uganda.
Tags Floods, sand mines.
In the Kasese area of Uganda, a digger mines sand alongside the Nyamwamba River, March 3, 2022. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Hedwig Arinaitwe

Communities living near the Nyamwamba River in western Uganda know too well the kind of havoc it can wreck in the wet seasons.  

It has in recent years cut-off roads and displaced people.

And now local experts and officials are warning that the largely unchecked sand mining in the river is creating pits along its bed and banks, putting communities in even greater danger of having their homes and livelihoods washed away.

Hedwig Arinaitwe reports how sand mining is reducing the amount of water-holding sand available in the river, cutting its capacity to hold excess water during heavy rains and floods.

Read her story – here

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