Somalia: Floods displace hundreds in Southern Somalia

(SomaliNet) A Somali government official said Monday that floods caused by Shabelle River forced hundreds of families out of their homes in the riverside villages around the southern Somali town of Janaale.

\"The river broke its banks after heavy rains in the past two days and nearly 705 families left their homes that had been swept away by the flood waters,\" Ibrahim Jabril Kulow, Mayor of Janaale, Lower Shabelle province, said.

The Mayor said that people in the area around Janaale, 90 km south of the capital Mogadishu, were left homeless and lacked food water and medicine.

Kulow also said that nearly 200 of farm land was destroyed in Janaale, Malable and Sigale villages which have been almost submerged by the flood waters that had been steadily rising.

There are two main rivers in Somalia, Shabelle and Jubba, which go through the war-torn Horn of Africa nation from the central region to the country\'s bread basket regions in the south.

However, seasonal floods annually wreck havoc on villages around the rivers forcing hundreds of families and destroying their crops and livestock.

Mayor kulow appealed to local and international aid agencies for help saying the most essential need of the displaced is food water and shelters.

\"Our people have lost everything they had and may face humanitarian catastrophe if help is not brought to them as soon as possible,\" Kulow said.

Aid agencies have scaled down their operations in Somalia following the targeting of aid workers in recent spate of attacks that claimed the lives of a number of humanitarian workers and wounded others. – Xinhua