By Mustafa Haji Abdinur
Thursday, November 23, 2006
With the emergence of cholera cases, humanitarian groups raced to southern Somalia to avert a possible disaster that would be exacerbated by fears of war between the Islamic fighters and government forces backed by Ethiopian troops.
Of the casualties, four were mauled by crocodiles lurking in floodwater in Mustahil district of Somalia’s Hiraan region, where the River Shabelle broke its banks and swept through villages, they said.
"We were told by the villagers that four bodies were recovered floating on the floods," said Abdulahi Mao Nur, an elder in the region’s capital Beledweyne, said.
"Crocodiles killed them because they had serious injuries. Two of them had their legs eaten," Nur said by telephone.
"We don’t know how to overcome this problem because every day, we are getting information about crocodiles killing and wounding livestock and human beings," he added.
Last week, crocodiles killed nine people in the same district, forcing tens of thousands to flee to higher ground, where they are surviving on wild fruit and face an outbreak of waterborne diseases.
Humanitarian workers said three other people died when their hut collapsed under heavy flooding in Lower Shabelle region in southern Somalia, one of the most affected regions in the country.
"Three people were found dead after the hut they lived in collapsed. They couldn’t manage to escape and nobody was there to rescue them," said Abdulkadir Hudo, a local aid worker.
As heavy downpours continued to wreak havoc in Somalia, which is already beset by years of conflict, relief organisations scrambled to rescue the flood-affected people, estimated at nearly one million.
The United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday launched a massive emergency relief operation to the Somalia’s Juba, Gedo, Shabelle and Hiraan regions where floods have washed farmlands and roads, disrupted food supplies and cut off villages.
The ICRC airlifted tarpaulins to assist 324,000 people in those areas while the UN’s World Food Programme said a large Ilyushin-76 aircraft and two heavy-lift helicopters would airdrop food.
The Somali government has warned of an imminent disaster if aid agencies do not rapidly deliver food and other essential items to the most remote regions, most of which are inaccessible.
Somalia, a nation of about 10 million, has lacked any disaster response mechanism since the country was plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
In addition to the conflict, hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by years of droughts, famine, floods and absence of permanent humanitarian operations.
In neighbouring Kenya, a man drowned in Rift Valley’s Keiyo region, a provincial commissioner said, bringing the death toll to 38 people killed while around 200,000 others, including 80,000 refugees, require urgent relief supplies.
Southern Ethiopia is still reeling from flash floods in August and September, which left 639 dead and affected over 350,000 people, again chiefly hitting the ethnic Somali region.
Aid groups have warned that the situation in the three eastern Africa countries is expected to worsen over the coming weeks as the torrential rain continues.
According to the UN, between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people in the three nations have been affected by the flooding, which has altered the way of life for the largely agricultural and pastoral communities.
Source: AFP, Nov 23, 2006