Cleaning-up after the floods

Just a week ago this was a ghost town. Homes abandoned, classrooms empty, streets deserted. 

 

In the immediate aftermath of the floods, 24,000 people were evacuated from Obrenovac, over two-thirds of its entire population. 

 

A similar proportion of the town lay submerged - in some neighbourhoods waves lapped against second story windows.

A resident of Obrenovac has to use a ladder from a boat to access his flooded home

But now, six weeks since the floods hit, the waters have mostly receded and the town is showing signs of returning to normal.

Cafes and grocery stores have begun to reopen. While the queue of cars to enter the town is no longer empty, snaking for kilometres as more and more families return to survey the damage.

Hundreds of ruined cars line the town’s streets; doors, windows and bonnets open in the hope that when dry they will work again.

Shop-owners strip their storefronts and once valuable merchandise sits in sodden-heaps on the pavement waiting to be collected and disposed of.

For most people the cost has proved devastating. The worse affected simply have no safe home to return to, while the more fortunate wrestle with having lost their worldly possessions or businesses.

Many homes are still without electricity and basement floors remain flooded with sewage-contaminated and stagnant water – the risk of disease an all too real reality.

Clean-up efforts

In response, last week we distributed 250 clean-up kits so that those returning home have the right equipment and protective clothing to do so safely. Another 250 have gone to community volunteers who are working tirelessly to clean public areas such as streets, schools and kindergartens.

 

Save the Children Clean-up kits, consisting of protective boots, gloves, facemasks and shovels, have helped almost 5,000 people clean their homes

We have also given generators, water pumps and dehumidifiers to the local government so that those families in need can borrow them and make their homes habitable again.

Children in distress

The affects of the floods have also been extremely distressing for the children in affected areas.  Children have told us of how they watched helplessly as their homes filled with water, how they had to run in the dead of night to higher ground or wait for hours on second-floor balconies for rescue.

 

“It was late, we were all sleeping when I woke up and realised there was water in the house. I woke everyone up and we tried to stop it coming in. But it didn’t work so we ran. We couldn’t take anything. Just the clothes we were wearing to sleep in. It was frightening.” - Miladinka, 11 years old

Likewise many parents explain that since the disaster their children have become more introverted and that now often their children become physically upset whenever it starts to rain.

 

With schools and kindergartens now closed for rehabilitation, and with parents needing time and space to repair their homes and get their livelihoods back on track it is crucial that the needs of children are not forgotten.

This is why Save the Children, along with its partner organisations in Serbia, are about to initiate Child Friendly Spaces in both Obrenovac and rural areas to ensure that children affected by this crisis have a safe and nurturing space to play, learn, receive psychosocial support and most importantly be children again.