The water that has flooded Dolow district in southwest Somalia is receding, but leaving behind destitute families who have lost everything and are now at risk of disease.
• Also read: At least 96 dead in floods in Somalia
Shukri Abdi Osman and her three children found refuge in a refugee camp along with about 700 other families displaced by the floods.
“I had never experienced such devastating floods before, everything happened very quickly. By the time we realized the water was coming, it was too late to take our personal belongings. We left at midnight and could only take our children with us,” she told AFP.
“My business is over, my property is demolished, my house is surrounded by water,” said this woman, who had plans to expand her business as a fruit and vegetable seller on the banks of the Jubba River, near the Ethiopian border.
And now the risk of disease.
“The toilets have been destroyed and even the tap water is mixed with dirty water from the flood, which includes leaks from septic tanks,” says Shukri Abdi Osman. “The situation in the camp is very difficult now, my daughter is not feeling well, she may have already caught malaria and typhus.”
The Somali government declared a state of emergency on November 12 after what the UN called the “flood of the century” that killed around 100 people and left 700,000 people homeless.
Torrential rains linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon hit the Horn of Africa as it emerged from its worst drought in forty years, leaving millions of people in distress and destroying crops and livestock.
Somalia is one of the countries most affected by climate change, and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense. From October 1997 to January 1998, gigantic floods caused by heavy El Niño rains that caused the Jubba River to overflow caused at least 1,800 deaths in Somalia.
The country is facing this new crisis as it already tries to battle deep poverty and a deadly Islamist insurgency.
The recent flooding has destroyed homes, schools, farmland, roads and bridges, leaving residents without shelter, food and drinking water.
According to Mohamed Dahir, water manager for the American NGO Mercy Corps, humanitarian organizations are now worried about people vulnerable to disease in this area.
“A serious danger”
“The likelihood of a malaria outbreak is high due to mosquitoes and there are also concerns about the occurrence of watery diarrhea due to possible contamination of the water supply system,” he told AFP.
“We do not yet know the exact level of contamination, but we have found that the septic tanks are leaking and the destroyed toilets in the area in question are contaminating the water wells,” he added.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), 33 districts were flooded, leading to a significant increase in cases of watery diarrhea and cholera, as well as an increase in malaria. And standing water around schools poses “a serious risk of illness” for students.
“The most important thing is to save the lives of our children,” Sadia Sharif Hassan, a forty-year-old mother of seven, told AFP as she asked the neighborhood for a container to collect water.
“The mosquitoes don’t stop and already some of my children are not feeling well, suffering from fever. Their bodies are covered in bites,” she continues, saying she struggles to find enough to feed her family every day.
In Garboolow District, 70-year-old Owliyo Mohamed Abdirahman almost fell into the mud while trying to retrieve personal belongings from her house. But everything was swept away.
“This is the rest of the house where I lived with my now sick son, his child and his wife,” she said desperately. “We fled to save our skins and took nothing with us.”
Everyone relies on donors to provide food and clothing.
Garboolow Commissioner Mursal Mohamed Adan said authorities were eager to receive help from humanitarian organizations. “God knows what will happen next, but we fear the rain will continue to cause further flooding, which will only make the situation worse.”