Floods in Costa Rica
Sixaola is a community on the border of Panama. Due to a cold front, in the Caribbean, this community experienced flooding from Friday, March 6th till Wednesday, March 11th, when the water began to recede.
In less than four months this zone was affected by three floods. One at the end of November, another in January and the present flood.
Due to this flood, 1500 people from this community needed to look for a safe place to stay. Contacts from the zone have communicated that some people are staying in second floors of churches or in homes of friends. Others are living on the sides of roads near the bridge that is above the Sixaola River, which marks the border between Costa Rica and Panama.
At least 35 families were rescued in small boats by Red Cross personal and brought to shelters in the indigenous region of Bribri, Talamanca.
The center of the community remains without communication because of the rising of the Sixaola River.
The flooding has also broken the roadway into three different parts, and it can’t be repaired until the water level lowers.
For the people who live in the district of Talamanca, the flood hit the economy hard. People still hadn’t recovered from their loses in the flood that took place this past November.
This is a recurring situation in Sixaola, for this reason the residents of this community are preoccupied at the lack of attention and help from the government.
The only solution of the government and the National Commission of Emergencies is to relocate this community, but these organizations have not given any concrete solutions to help the community in this process.
This is a critical situation because these people are living from day to day. There needs to be a strong process of organization, participation in fighting for the human rights of these people, and formulation of prevention strategies to help lessen the impact of natural disasters.
There is still a lot of work to be done to help the vulnerable people in this situation, for this reason ILCO is looking for cooperation from other cooperation agencies to help with this urgent cause.