Asha, a mother-of-four, found herself once again donning rubber boots inside her living room – the recurring cost of residing near Lake Tanganyika in Burundi, where climate change and relentless flooding have become a part of daily life.
The graceful architecture of Gatumba – a town bordering the capital, Bujumbura – serves as a testament to its past prosperity. Yet for many, that memory feels remote.
Increasingly, residents resort to pitching tents atop their roofs, as children drift between homes on makeshift rafts fashioned from plastic bottles.
“We’ve been underwater for years,” said Asha, aged 32.
Lake Tanganyika is known for its cyclical fluctuations in water level, but these have been worsened by global warming, according to Bernard Sindayihebura, an urban planning and environment specialist at the University of Burundi.
He explained that surface temperatures on Africa’s second-largest lake have climbed steadily, leading to heavier rainfall and pushing the lake above its historical average since 2018.
With the lake swollen, the Ruzizi River is unable to drain into it, resulting in persistent floods that inundate surrounding areas like Gatumba on the northern shore.
The situation escalated in 2023, when Asha and her family were forced to flee a particularly severe flood. With water rising as high as her waist, she had to seek shelter in temporary accommodation nearby.
The following year, and again this year, they were displaced repeatedly, as floodwaters engulfed entire neighbourhoods.
Burundi ranks among the world’s poorest nations, standing 187th out of 193 on the United Nations Human Development Index. The UN also lists it as one of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change.
In 2024, pounding rains, magnified by the El Nino phenomenon, displaced nearly 100,000 people and claimed numerous lives, although no official figures have been released.
Ariella, a mother of seven now residing in the Gateri camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in northern Burundi, spoke of losing everything in the 2020 Gatumba floods.
Her house collapsed, and one of her babies was almost swept away by the floodwaters. The family moved between two different camps, only to be hit by floods again.
“We often wonder what our future will look like,” said Ariella.
In Gatumba, community leader Jean-Marie Niyonkuru, 42, said residents are doing their best to cope, but conditions remain dire.
“Children suffer from diarrhoea because the water has mixed with toilet water, flooding the streets,” he said. “There is a lot of cholera.”
Save the Children is now appealing for assistance, but critical funding has dried up. Under President Donald Trump, 83 percent of United States humanitarian projects have been suspended, with climate-related programmes among those most at risk.
The US previously provided 40 percent of global aid, and no other country has bridged the gap.