Floods caused by torrential rain in parts of southern Somalia have killed more than 23 people and displaced thousands over the past five days, aid workers and residents said on Tuesday.
The death toll is partly based on figures given by residents in different parts of southern Somalia contacted on two-way radio, the most common means of communication in this Horn of Africa nation, which has had no effective central government for 15 years.
Ali Bashi, the head of the Fanoole Human Rights Organization, said that the highest number of deaths had been reported in the Gedo region, which borders both Ethiopia and Kenya. He said that nine people died in the floods there, among them four children.
PHOTO: AFP
Local representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and other local non-governmental organizations said that thousands of people in southern Somalia had been forced to leave their homes after rain caused the Jubba and Shabelle rivers to burst their banks in five regions of the country.
Drivers in southern Somalia said they had seen thousands of people on roads that pass a string of towns near the Jubba and Shabelle rivers. The drivers said that the people are in search of higher ground after having fled their homes.
Dozens of these people arrived in the capital, Mogadishu, to take refugee in temporary camps here.
"We could not deal with the flooding because it ran through all the dams constructed by the former government and we had no other option but to save our lives," said Aasho Haaji Abdi, a mother of six children, at a temporary camp in Mogadishu -- in what was the main post office.
David Gilmore of CARE International said that the southern agricultural town of Jowhar, which has hundreds of canals cutting around it and the surrounding areas, have been devastated by heavy flooding from the nearby Shabelle River.
"The torrential rainfall has affected road transport, where much needed relief supplies and food have been cut off to communities, which have been affected by consecutive years of drought," said Gilmore, who is CARE International's country director for Somalia.
In neighboring Kenya, a woman and child died and thousands of Somali refugees were made homeless after heavy rain pounded refugee camps in the country's northeastern regions and destroyed the refugees' shelters, said Eddie Gedalof, the UN refugee agency's acting representative in Kenya.
The deaths and destruction occurred on Friday, but have only been made public on Tuesday because aid agencies were assessing the effects of the rains since Saturday in a region where many of the roads have become water-logged and impassable, said Gedalof.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS