Ethiopia caught in dangerous cycle of drought and floods
Pastor Dale Morgan
Ethiopia caught in dangerous cycle of drought and floods*
ADDIS ABABA, Nov 5 (AFP) Nov 05, 2006
Ethiopia, which was hit again by deadly floods this week, is caught in a
devastating cycle of drought and heavy rains that threatens the survival
of millions of people, experts say.
"Over the years, the Somali region of Ethiopia has suffered from cycles
of droughts and floods," the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said.
According to the WFP, around 1.5 million farmers "require urgent
humanitarian assistance as large numbers of livestock died, wells and
boreholes dried up, malnutrition rates increased and disease became
rampant."
The latest flooding has been caused by a sudden rise in the level of the
river Wabe Shebelle, swollen by heavy rains, whose depth had doubled at
the end of last week.
Flooding from the river had practically cut off the worst-affected towns
of Kelafo and Musthail, 80 and 150 kilometres (50 and 90 miles) from
Gode, the capital of the Somali region, humanitarian experts said.
The latest death toll issued by the Ethiopian authorities said 68 people
had died in the recent floods and thousands had been made homeless.
The toll included five people taken by crocodiles lurking in the flood
waters, said Muktar Mohamed, the flood emergency coordinator for the
Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau (DPPA) in Gode.
Another six people had been injured in crocodile attacks, he added.
"The death toll has been climbing, because reports are coming in slowly
from the affected places," he said.
Mohamed said that 17,000 hectares of land and 2,000 livestock had been
lost in the flooding, which had affected nearly 280,000 people in 94
villages.
"We still don't have a precise figure for displaced people," he added.
The DPPA has begun distributing humanitarian aid of cereals, pulses and
vegetable oil, while the WFP has made available 1,374 metric tons of
grain from its stocks.
Southeast 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 Somali region.
"One wonders how much an already vulnerable and fragile group of people
are expected to bear," said the WFP's representative in Ethiopia,
Mohamed Diab.
"At least WFP can ensure that many of those who may have already lost
everything have something to eat," he told AFP.
But even this modest goal is hard to achieve by land because roads have
been washed away and large tracts of territory are under water and full
of crocodiles and snakes.
"As access to the flood-affected area is difficult, dropping food to
survivors from aircraft is being considered," the WFP and the DPPA said.
Ethiopia's war-ravaged neighbour and northeast Kenya are also both
affected by the flooding.
"Based on the latest flood watch reports, we fear the situation could
get worse for the Juba region (in southern Somalia)," Matthew Olins,
deputy head of Somalia's UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), told AFP.
Olins said "small-scale damage" was already being recorded in the areas
around the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The majority of observers are pessimistic about the situation in the
Horn of Africa and see little hope of an end to the heavy floods and
droughts that have plagued the region in deadly cycles for decades.