World Tour: Nigeria suffers deadly flooding

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

SOUND: [Women and children crying]

ONIZE ODUAH: Nigerian flooding — Flooding in the north central Nigerian town of Mokwa has killed more than 200 people. Hundreds are missing.

Days of rainfall had caused water to build up behind an abandoned railway. Debris clogged the channels that would normally drain the water, causing the floodwaters to drench the town.

The downpour flattened homes and buried residents underneath.

Adamu Usman lives in the town.

ADAMU USMAN: In my own in-laws’ house, they lost ten. Friends, friends, the one that I know lost five, lost three, lost an entire family. Only he remain or only her remain or only the child remain.

He says he lost 10 people among his in-laws, while friends also lost family members.

Flooding during Nigeria’s rainy season is complicated by poor drainage, waste dumping, and shoddy construction.

Meanwhile, flooding in northeast India has killed more than 30 people.

SOUND: [Meeting]

Sweden adoptions — Over in Sweden, a government commission is recommending a total end to international adoptions.

Authorities commissioned the committee four years ago after a newspaper investigation found thousands of children were adopted from South Korea, China, and elsewhere, with falsified background details. The inquiry confirmed cases of child trafficking from the 1970s to 2000s.

Anna Singer is the head of the commission.

ANNA SINGER: [SWEDISH] The state needs to acknowledge the human rights violations that have occurred within the international adoption system and the consequences this has had for adopted individuals and their families — and to apologize.

She says the state also needs to apologize to adoptees and their families over the rights violations that happened within the system.

Other countries are also confronting similar issues. The Netherlands last year banned its citizens from adopting from abroad … while Denmark’s only international adoption agency announced its closure.

​​Mongolia PM resigns — Next, to Mongolia, where the prime minister has resigned after weeks of protests.

Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai lost a confidence vote Tuesday.

SOUND: [Protests]

It followed youth-led protests that began last month after reports surfaced of the lavish lifestyle of the prime minister’s son. Protesters said the country’s mineral resources benefit the wealthy, while the majority of Mongolians remain in poverty.

STUDENT: [MONGOLIAN] It is unfair that the Prime Minister's son and his girlfriend possess a lavish lifestyle, while I'm buying my bag from a thrift shop.

This 19-year-old student who joined the protests said it’s unfair that the prime minister’s son enjoys an opulent lifestyle while she has to shop in a thrift store.

Oyun-Erdene will remain in office until a new prime minister is appointed in 30 days.

SOUND: [Music]

El Salvador — We wrap up in El Salvador at an annual harvest celebration.

Hundreds of men joined the procession carrying poles on their shoulders laden with pineapples, coconuts, and bananas.

Margarita Aldana described the celebration as a thanksgiving to God.

MARGARITA ALDANA: [SPANISH] Now they've added things like sacks of fertilizer as a way to bless the crops so that next year's harvest will be even better. We give thanks to God for all the fruit that’s gathered at this time, and it's taken to the church. It’s like an offering.

She says they also add fertilizers to the procession as a way of praying for next year’s crops.

The practice dates back nearly a century in El Salvador.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

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