|
|
Kenya: Floods, crocodile ravage Kenya, Somalia
Mon. November 20, 2006 08:01 am. -
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) The United Nations and aid groups on Sunday launched a massive humanitarian operation in Kenya to assist more than 150,000 people hit by killer floods caused by unusually heavy seasonal rains.
Neighbouring Somalia, which is on the brink of war, the country's weak government under threat from a powerful Islamist movement, appealed for emergency international aid to help 1.5 million people affected by flooding. Residents of flood-hit areas of Somalia reported that nine people had been devoured by crocodiles unleashed by raging waters, bringing the death toll from three weeks of flooding to at least 52.
In Kenya, authorities said the death toll had risen to at least 28 with the drowning of five more people in the east, badly hit along with the country's northern and coastal areas. The five-two adults and three students-drowned in Mwingi district after their vehicle was swept away when a river burst its banks, local police chief Stanley Mwita said. At least 20 people were reported missing in the nearby town of Garissa, about 300 km east of the capital, which was submerged by the floods and was still underwater, officials said.
"If the rains continue, we are then facing a humanitarian crisis," UNHCR spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera told AFP, adding that the agency was negotiating with the Kenyan government to move the refugees to higher ground. At least 100 tonnes of emergency food supplies have been bogged down in Kenya as roads become impassable, according to UN agencies-AFP.
News Category: East Africa
Latest Headlines
|
News 
