DAKAR (AFP) — The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 1.5 million people from Mauritania in the west to Kenya in the east were affected by some of Africa's worst flooding in decades.
At least 270 people have died as result of the floods and waterborne disease across 18 affected countries according to an AFP tally from governments and humanitarian aid organisations.
Sudan, Ghana and Nigeria have been worst hit in terms of confirmed deaths, while in Uganda as many as 1.7 million people are in need of food thanks to a combination of floods and civil war.
Aid agencies have predicted that the situation will only deteriorate in the coming days with further downpours forecast over many countries on the world's poorest continent.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), earlier this week said one million people had been affected since the floods first hit in July, but on Wednesday it raised that figure by 50 percent.
"Floods across Africa are reported to be the worst in decades in some places and extend in an arc from Mauritania in the west to Kenya in the east," its World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement.
"At least an estimated 1.5 million people are so far affected," the statement said.
Apart from food, the WFP is seeking helicopters and boats to reach people marooned by rising waters.
Almost half of the fatalities are in Sudan where 113 people have been confirmed dead since flash floods lashed swathes of the east and southern parts of the vast African country since July.
In all half a million people there have been affected including 200,000 who are now homeless, the UN said.
"There is a risk of epidemics breaking out, such as acute watery diarrhoea which has already killed 57," said WFP.
Sudan was already reeling from another major humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region where the combined effects of a famine and civil war have killed more 200,000 and displaced two million over the past four years.
West Africa, which contains the majority of the world's least developed countries, has another third of the victims.
According to OCHA, 500,000 people in the region, previously better known for its droughts, were affected by heavy rains and the "worst floods in 10 years."
An estimated 75,000 people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid in Ghana while in Togo 60,000 urgently require food. WFP warns that the figures for Togo victims could rise as information is still to be collected from areas that have been difficult to access.
In Ghana, schools -- usually the only durable brick-and-cement structures in rural areas -- were forced to provide emergency housing for villagers. Many people sleep in classrooms and vacate during the day to allow classes to run, and return in the evening.
In Uganda, where at least 300,000 people are already affected there are fears the numbers could rise. The WFP is appealing for 64.6 million dollars (46.3 million euros) to feed some 1.7 million people at risk.
"Some of those forced from their homes by floods had only recently returned from years of living in camps for the displaced in northern Uganda, where they had been sheltering during years of conflict between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and government," it said.
Also in the east end of the continent, 183,000 are affected in Ethiopia while 7,000 in Rwanda have had their houses destroyed.
"We anticipate that the situation will worsen," Elizabeth Byrs from OCHA warned on Tuesday, adding that heavy rains were forecast in west Africa between 18 and 24 September.
Apart from fears of disease outbreaks, vast tracts of land planted with crops have been washed away across parts of the affected countries while thousands of livestock drowned.
In Sudan 42.000 hectares of crops and some 12,000 livestock have been lost while in Ethiopia, 34.000 hectares of farmland have been damaged and 4,000 livestock washed away.
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