Somalia flood waters still rising
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Somalia flood waters still rising*
Flood waters are still rising in southern Somalia, an aid worker in the
area has told the BBC.
"Our hospital is surrounded by water," said Julie Neubuhr from medical
aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.
She said aid workers were already treating cases of cholera and she
feared a major outbreak of disease.
Aid agencies have launched an appeal to help some 1.8 million people
affected by the floods in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
The aid effort in Somalia is especially difficult because of the lack of
infrastructure following 15 years of conflict and the absence of a
central government.
Refugee camps flooded
Ms Neubuhr told the BBC's World Today programme that people were still
arriving by boat as some villages were completely cut off.
She was speaking from a clinic in Marere, near the Juba river, about
80km north of the port of Kismayo.
She said the waters had been rising for the past two weeks and aid
workers were now setting up a camp on higher ground.
The Shabelle and Juba rivers have both flooded their banks, affecting
towns and villages in a swathe of territory stretching hundreds of
kilometres.
In eastern Kenya, the UN refugee agency has started to move thousands of
Somali refugees, whose camps near Dadaab have been flooded.
The BBC's Bashkas Jugsodaay says some 35,000 new arrivals have agreed to
move but a larger group, which has been there for 15 years, refuse to
move to higher ground near Hagdera.
Some of them have built solid houses which they do not want to abandon.
They instead want the UNHCR to build a dam to protect their camps.
Parts of the nearby town of Garissa are also underwater, with houses
near the River Tana submerged.
The floods have knocked out bridges and made roads impassable, meaning
aid drops are the only way to deliver food.
One Somali refugee in Kenya told the BBC he and others were living in
trees and were attacked by wild animals.
The floods in the Horn of Africa follow last year's droughts in the region.
That left the earth unable to absorb the heavy rains, leading to flash
floods in Ethiopia, as well as Somalia and Kenya.
The UN has said the floods could be the worst in the region for 50 years.
The rains are expected to continue for another month.