With funding from the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), IOM Bolivia is providing emergency assistance to some 1,500 families affected by recent floods and landslides.

In early March, heavy rains caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon produced floods and landslides in eight of the country's nine departments.  Sixteen persons are reported dead and five are still missing.

Following an immediate assessment, Bolivia's Civil Defense reported that some 45,200 families were in need of emergency assistance. 

"Many families are reusing tents provided by IOM during the previous floods, but these are now in a really poor state," explains Walter Arce, IOM Chief of Mission in Bolivia.  "In Beni, some of these families are living in the IOM-provided tents along the main roads, so IOM will help relocate those wishing to do so to safer areas," he adds.

IOM is working in coordination with Save the Children and OXFAM in the departments of Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Beni and in La Paz to improve existing shelters and will distribute non-food items such as kitchen sets, blankets and mattresses for tropical areas, hygiene kits and mosquito nets.

IOM will also be carrying out the monitoring of camps and the systemization of information which will assist the Government and all agencies involved in the relief operations.

Bolivia's National Meteorological Service has predicted continued heavy rainfall through March, and then decreasing rapidly in April as the intensity of El Niño decreases.

For more information, please contact:

Walter Arce
IOM La Paz
Tel: + 5912 2369.044
E-mail: warce@iom.int